Freedom of choice and abortion: if the rights of children are not protected

I have always been a supporter of the pro-life front: I have always considered it absurd not to recognise that a human life is worthy of respect from the moment of conception. It is true that this opinion is also based on my faith, but I do not think one needs to be a Catholic to realise that a baby in its mother’s womb has, from the very beginning, its own genetic heritage, a vital principle (independent of its mother) and a little heart that beats like any other person’s.

A little reasoning, a little common sense and a minimum of scientific knowledge would suffice. However, the world seems to be going in a completely different direction.

For some time now, in fact, the idea has spread in many countries that abortion is to all intents and purposes a woman’s right to be granted for whatever reason. It no longer even matters if there are health, economic or other problems… a woman who is expecting an unwanted child must be able to choose to reject it.

The increasing liberalisation of abortion

An indicator of this liberalisation of abortion are the numerous legislative manoeuvres taking place in various countries.

Take the case of France, where there is a struggle to eliminate conscientious objection and to limit all actions aimed at making women think about the act they are about to perform. The objective? To see abortion classified as a right among others, a right in its own right, and not as an ‘extreme solution’, because that would not be fair in the face of a woman’s free choice.

Moreover, there are many countries where supporters of the pro-life front have to fight against proposals such as guaranteeing women the possibility of abortion even when the pregnancy is already at a very advanced stage. This is the case, for example, in Great Britain, where they want to increase the number of weeks of gestation in which the unborn child can be aborted.

The so-called right to abortion, enshrined in law

These are just a few examples. Many more could be given, but they say a lot about the culture that is spreading in many countries of the so-called ‘first world’: there is a tendency to exalt the freedom of some (women and doctors) while ignoring the rights of others (the unborn child).

As we know, this process takes place mainly in the legislative sphere. And what the law says, in the collective imagination, is ‘sacrosanct’, that is, it becomes a moral norm, especially in a climate of growing relativism, where it is difficult to find other indicators to establish what is right and what is wrong.

And what are the consequences?

Pro-lifers are fanatics or culturally backward.

Conscientious objectors or those with an anti-abortion stance are fanatics, even subversives, precisely because they oppose a supposed right enshrined in law.

Expressing opposition to abortion means being the victim of a cultural heritage or religious belief, which clashes with the order of a secular and democratic state.

Countries like Sweden and Finland, where conscientious objection does not exist, are considered models of civilisation and progress; while countries like Italy and Portugal, where the percentage of objectors reaches very high levels, must be considered ‘backward’.

True freedom is not achieved by trampling on the rights of others.

What is forgotten, however, is that true freedom is not achieved by trampling on the rights of others. In a democracy based on the assumption that all members of the population have equal dignity, the idea of extending someone’s freedom at the expense of the rights of another human being (in this case the foetus) should be unthinkable. The real problem, however, is that the baby in the mother’s womb is not considered a human being and therefore would not be entitled to any rights.

A personal experience

If I already thought that abortion was a serious crime against small defenceless lives, when I found out that I was expecting a child I realised to the full how absurd it is to consider this crime as a right….

I remember that during the first visit (during the gestation period when abortion is allowed in Italy) I felt my son’s heart beating.

I was moved and thought: ‘How can anyone be so blind and deaf as not to recognise that this little one is a living human being?’

He was inside me, yes, but he was not an appendage of my body: he was another living being… who did not exist before and now, instead, asked me to be loved, protected.

Without me, it would have died (just as a baby dies if left to itself)… but I did not understand why the fact that this tiny creature depended on me gave me the right to decide on its life.

Love of life and a woman’s freedom: when doctors live a contradiction

The behaviour of the doctor who examined me left me speechless.

In front of the monitor, she enthusiastically showed me my son’s movements, showed me the different parts of his body. I remember that the brusque attitude with which she had greeted me, in front of the baby, literally disappeared (during the ultrasound scans, in front of this ‘doll’ – as she calls it – she always becomes tender and turns into another person).

However, after the visit, when we sat down at her desk, she started talking to me about the possibility of doing the prenatal diagnosis and told me that ‘there was still time’ to do studies on the health of the foetus and then decide whether or not to do it.

It felt surreal: two minutes earlier we were both in front of that monitor smiling at my son’s movements.

We had listened together to his beating heart. And then he told me that it was up to me to decide on that little creature’s life.

‘I will have it anyway, whether it is healthy or sick,’ I answered firmly.

Then the doctor continued: ‘If you think you are going to have the baby anyway, I advise against this type of examination, which is very invasive for the woman’.

I say this without shame: those words aroused a deep feeling of indignation in me, because I felt that my son was suffering an injustice….

The law and the health system only cared about me: about what I wanted, about the aggressiveness of the tests I would have done, and they did not take into account my son’s right to life.

In my case, the problem did not exist…. I had decided to have him, of course. But it seemed unfair to me that they had left the decision to me.

That day more than ever I wanted to live in a state where children had the same rights as their parents, before and after their birth… Yes, from that day more than ever I dream of a state where the doctors, after showing you your baby on that monitor, tell you: ‘This life is inside you, but it is another human being, woe betide you if you touch it’.