On the initiative and membership of several dozen associations, including the Family Day – Let’s Defend Our Children And ProLife & Familymany Tuscans coming from the cities of Florence, Siena, Pistoia, Prato, LuccaPisa, Pontremoli, Livorno and Massa joined the demonstration Let’s choose Life 2024 and paraded along the streets of the eternal city to testify “the absolute value of life, from conception to natural conclusion and the clear no to all the deadly culture dominant today”.
A colorful procession, animated by music and flags to bear witness to “a firm message that goes against the mainstream thought that intends to commodify the human being, making him a passive consumer, with the right to remove the disturbance or to abort an innocent nascent life or to commodify his fellow men”.
The president of the Family Day association and spokesperson for the event, Professor Massimo Gandolfinispeaking from the stage, he read the message of strong and great encouragement from Pope Francis who thanked the organizers and participants of the event, thus giving “public testimony in defense of human life from conception to natural death” and urging us to “move forward with courage despite all adversity because the stakes, that is, the absolute dignity of human life, a gift from God the Creator, are too high to be the subject of compromises or mediations”.
Gandolfini recalled that “the deadly culture of these times” is poisoning our societies and one of the fruits of this culture is the decline in birth rates which is particularly affecting Italy. Gandolfini then focused on the very widespread “mentality of discarding the elderly and the sick, asking that everyone be guaranteed dignified accompaniment to death with palliative care and then underlined the need to protect motherhood and unborn life also by contrasting practices that violate and commodify the lives of mothers and children such as surrogate motherhood. Finally, he urged society and the world of politics to support families, because the family is the cradle that welcomes life and the place of education of each individual up to adulthood despite all the social problems that exist… Supporting life and family means supporting the common good and having a lively hope for the future”.
There are many testimonies and experiences of families, couples, mothers and fathers who have chosen to welcome new lives “despite – it was said – economic, social difficulties or the pro-abortion pressures of a throwaway society which falsely sees the arrival of a child as a burden and a problem”.
Between these, Carola’s story, who painfully recalled her abortion experience: “I was afraid of being told that I was a failure, that I had ruined my life if I had accepted that life, but it wouldn’t have been like that. Today, 25 years later, I can say that then the State was the instigator, because no one listened to me, I didn’t have any conversations with the psychologist or social workers, not even with the doctor”.
Or that of Stefano and Teresa, a young couple who, with a child, Giacomo, just 14 months old and expecting a baby girl, have decided to welcome a new life despite the many economic difficulties that this would have entailed for them. “We know that it won’t be easy – they said – but a child cannot be reduced to one more or less item in the family budget and thank God there are many associations that help mothers and families, even materially”.
Songs, slogans and music accompanied the entire duration of the processionwhile the event ended with the last testimony, that of the influencer and founder of the Asd Roma Calcio Amputati, Arturo Mariani, and with the concert of the rock band The Sun.
