Gramellini’s Café | Azzurra Carnelos, who interrupted chemo to give birth to her son

As soon as I read about Azzurra Carnelos, the young woman from Oderzo who suspended chemo to give birth to a child and died thanking everyone and leaving him an orphan of a half-saint, I feared the worst. I feared, that is, that the pristine purity of her gesture, the fruit of a free individual choice, would be brandished like a club in the ongoing debate on the “vocation crisis” of motherhood. Nowadays, from wars to the football championship, there is no news that is not manipulated to support or detract from a specific thesis.

Instead, even the “Pro Vita” champion, Simone Pillon, in praising Mrs. Carnelos, resisted the temptation to polemically contrast her with those who do not wish to have children. Everyone, then, was unusually careful to never use the word “sacrifice”, whose victimistic flavor would, in fact, be difficult to reconcile with Azzurra’s lucid and strong-willed behavior.

Gestures like hers have the power to inspire only bright thoughts and remind us that every woman must be put in a position to be able to freely decide whether or not to be a motherwithout his choice becoming an object of judgement, a touchstone or a pretext for feelings of guilt.