3.5 Million Gather To Stand for Lives of the Unborn
You thought the March for Life was a bold stand for the unborn? Well, it was — but it still has nothing on what just happened in Argentina.
According to Catholic magazine Crux, an estimated 3.5 million Argentinians took to the streets in marches across 117 cities last weekend to protest against a proposed bill that would legalize abortion on demand in the country.
“No one in Argentina doubts where the Church stands on abortion: from history’s first pope from the global south to every bishop, they’ve all spoken up in recent weeks as the country debates a bill that would legalize abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy,” Crux’s Inés San Martín reported.
“Yet when it comes to defending the unborn, the Argentine hierarchy also has moved to the side, letting grassroot Catholics — as well as Evangelicals, atheists, and others — raise their voices. They did so on Sunday, when an estimated 3.5 million people rallied in 117 cities against the bill.”
While President Mauricio Macri has said that he’s pro-life, he’s also made it clear that he wouldn’t veto the bill if it passed the legislature. Except for nine provinces where there are exceptions in the case of rape or life of the mother, abortion remains completely illegal in the country.
In addition to the 14-week abortion on demand proposal in the bill, pro-abortion forces also want an amendment which would allow termination of the pregnancy after 14 weeks if there were signs of Down syndrome; Crux noted that in countries with such provisions, 98 percent of unborn children with signs of Downs were aborted.
Marchers used the motto “Protect them both,” a statement echoed from a manifesto read in Buenos Aires, where the largest march took place.
The manifesto said that “we consider that it’s inadmissible that in democracy we’re debating the possibility of eliminating human beings at will.”
“We rally because we want to protect both lives since, whether it’s done at the mother’s request or not, abortion causes the woman and those around her irreparable damage, becoming an attack against society’s common good,” it added.
There weren’t any disturbances during the rally or destruction of property. Marchers held placards saying “I love life,” calling for protection “from the mother’s womb,” imploring mothers that “I want to be born, my life is in your hands” and one that said “I’m an atheist, this is not about religion.”
Crux contrasted this with some of the more, ahem, contentious pro-abortion slogans: “If the pope was a woman, abortion would be law,” “Don’t oppress me,” “Take your rosaries off our ovaries,” “No baby is born straight,” and “Death to the macho.”
Whether or not that kind of soixiante-huitard posturing is going to mollify those that might be on the fence in the overwhelmingly Catholic country is anyone’s guess, although those certainly sounded a lot less like actual solutions to social problems than what was coming from the pro-life side.
Organizers acknowledged that the abortion problem arose out of “difficult and painful situations, of violence, marginalization, poverty, lack of formation, loneliness and abandonment; but our most intimate conviction is that abortion is never the solution.”
And that should probably be the lesson: 45 years after Roe v. Wade, how have any of those problems gotten better in America? Beyond the simple fact that life is life, the debasement of a society caused by abortion and the denigration of life has never made things better. All over the world, it’s time to search for real solutions — not quick fixes with a supposed feminist provenance.
At least 3.5 million Argentinians understand this fact. We can only hope many more millions — if not billions — across God’s great earth wake up to this elemental fact.
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