No all’aborto, nemmeno in caso di stupro

Rebecca Kiessling è stata concepita durante uno stupro. Scampata all’aborto, si presenta come la voce di chi non ce l’ha, cioè di tutti i «bambini» concepiti allo stesso modo e che rischiano di essere «uccisi» («I speak internationally sharing my story of having been conceived in rape and nearly aborted at two illegal abortionist, but protected by law»). Kiessling vorrebbe vietare l’interruzione di gravidanza in qualsiasi circostanza. Per quanto improponibile sia vietare l’aborto volontario, Kiessling è almeno coerente con le sue premesse ferocemente prolife: se l’aborto è un omicidio, lo è anche in caso di stupro. La modalità di concepimento non incide infatti sullo statuto ontologico dell’embrione, considerato persona fin dal concepimento. Se uccidi tuo figlio sei sempre una assassina, e se uccidi un bambino che ha avuto origine da una violenza carnale sei forse qualcosa di peggio.

Next, 17 settembre 2014.

No One Called Me a Slut

TWO weeks ago, a bomb went off outside a Wisconsin abortion center. In recent years, several states have passed or tried to pass laws requiring women seeking legal, constitutionally protected procedures to first undergo medical examinations. A young woman has been called a slut after testifying in favor of insurance coverage for contraceptive care. These are but a few of the stories about attacks on a woman’s right to choose.

It wasn’t always like this.

This is a story of how it used to be:

It’s 1978, five years after Roe v. Wade. I’m 38, I have four sons — the oldest is 17, the youngest is turning 12. I’m at school, getting a B.A., and I’m loving it.

I’m about two and a half months pregnant.

I don’t want this child.

I have a family, a large family. I love my children with a passion, but I don’t want any more. I know this with absolute certainty. I’ve got other things to do, and I don’t have it in me to be a good enough mother to a fifth child. I delight in newborn babies with their delicate weightlessness, the curl of their small fingers around my thumb, but the best thing about them now is that they belong to other people. I don’t want to bear them, feed them, bring them up, be responsible for them.

I don’t want this child.

Susan Heath.
Da leggere tutto. The New York Times di ieri.

Where Abortion Rights Are Disappearing

The map illustrates the barriers, state by state, facing women needing access to a constitutionally protected medical procedure. States shown in the darkest shade have enacted five of the most harmful restrictions: mandatory waiting periods; demeaning “counseling” sessions lacking a real medical justification; parental consent or notification laws that pose a particular hardship for teenagers from troubled homes, including incest victims; needlessly onerous clinic “safety” rules governing such things as the width of hallways and the amount of storage space for janitorial supplies; and prohibitions on abortion coverage in insurance policies. States in lighter shades have fewer of these restrictions. Twenty-seven states have enacted three or more of these laws, while only 12 states, shown in white, have none.

The New York Times di ieri 24 settembre.

Perché non restare là?

C’era anche una delegazione italiana alla March for Life svoltasi martedì 22 gennaio a Washington (Stati Uniti).

Pur in un clima molto rigido, l’annuale appuntamento dei sostenitori del diritto alla vita ha raccolto oltre 200.000 persone, che hanno sfilato e manifestato lungo la Constitution Avenue, tra il National Mall e il Palazzo della Corte Costituzionale.

La Marcia per la vita è nata trentacinque anni fa: il 22 gennaio del 1973 fu proclamata la sentenza Roe v. Wade, con cui la Corte Suprema americana legalizzò di fatto l'aborto negli Stati Uniti. Le vittime di questa sentenza sono state, fino ad oggi, 48 milioni. Ogni giorno 3000 bambini sono vittime della interruzione volontaria di gravidanza.

Altri dettagli da Zenit di oggi.

Frank Pavone contro (la tragedia del)l’aborto

Frank Pavone è il direttore nazionale di Priest for Life. Pavone è impegnato nella battaglia contro l’aborto. Ha anche un blog. In occasione del quarantesimo anniversario della enciclica Humanae Vitae si prepara a sferrare il colpo di grazia. Colpo, secondo Pavone, abbastanza lieve. Infatti Pavone è convinto che i fautori della libera scelta (e dunque della legalizzazione della interruzione di gravidanza) siano ormai prossimi alla resa finale. E che la Roe vs Wade abbia i minuti contati.
Lo scrive con tanto di decalogo delle motivazioni (Ten Reasons Why the Pro-life Movement is Winning). Alcune di queste presunte dimostrazioni sono davvero godibili. Come la prima, The survivors:

Sign 1: The survivors

The surest sign of our ultimate victory is the strong and ever-growing involvement of young people in all aspects of the fight to end abortion. And if you ask them why they’ve joined our fight, they will tell you: “It could have been me!” In speaking up for the unborn, the youth of America are also speaking up for themselves. This is an awareness and motivation that abortion advocates can do nothing to stop. And as a result, our pro-life movement receives a new strength and motivation each day from these survivors.

Oppure la terza, che dovrebbe essere una prova inconfutabile:

Sign 3: I regret my abortion

Another clear sign of progress is the wave of women and men across the world who are speaking out about how they regret having their child killed by abortion. The “Silent No More Awareness Campaign” – a joint project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life – provides these women and men an opportunity to share their testimonies in public gatherings, before the media, in pulpits, and in legislative hearings. As Jennifer O’Neill, the campaign’s National Celebrity Spokeswoman says, “Experience trumps theory.” These men and women are living testimony that abortion doesn’t work. Instead of “solving” a problem, abortion creates more problems of its own. Best of all, there is nothing abortion advocates can do to stop this tidal wave. In fact, it puts them in quite a dilemma. For decades now they have been saying, “Listen to the voices of women!” Now, if they practice what they preach, they hear those women’s voices repudiate the lie of abortion.

Il decalogo si chiude con la incrollabile fede in una vittoria già avvenuta. Verrebbe da chiedergli: perché combattere allora? Ma basta leggere la motivazione della già avvenuta vittoria per capire:

There is one among us who holds the keys of death and of hell. Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead! Although thought to be overwhelmed by the agents of death ... He trampled death by His death. As a result, death has been robbed of its power. “O death, where is thy sting?” Because of Christ’s Resurrection, death no longer has the final word in the human story. Our final destiny is heaven ... not the grave!

(I corsivi sono i suoi.)
Nel sito è presente anche una sezione di foto di aborti che ha lo scopo di mostrare agli americani che cosa sia l’aborto. E tanti altri link sul genere. Tra questi una campagna contro il silenzio (The Silent No More Awareness Campaign).

“È sbagliato, ma deve rimanere una scelta della donna”

Non è tra quelli che hanno fatto della battaglia contro la legalizzazione dell’aborto un punto della loro campagna politica, additando la Roe vs Wade (1973) come il primo ostacolo da rimuovere.
Rudolph W. Giuliani (In S. Carolina, Giuliani asserts personal, political abortion stances, Baltimore Sun, 6 aprile 2007)

campaigning in South Carolina, firmly stated that as president he would not seek to make abortion illegal.
Aware of the damage his position might do to him among some conservative voters, Giuliani said that if someone was inclined to vote against him solely because of his stance on abortion, then so be it.

“I think abortion is wrong,” he said. “But ultimately, I think it is a woman’s right, a woman’s choice. And government should not interfere with it by imposing criminal penalties on people.”

Giuliani, a Roman Catholic who once considered joining the priesthood, has wrestled with the abortion question for years, often expressing his personal opposition. But he has also long supported keeping abortion legal.

Non piacerà la posizione di Giuliani agli antiabortisti, soprattutto in un Paese tanto conservatore come il South Carolina.