Remnant News Watch

(June 30, 2010) 

The “I am Whole Life” initiative, a project dedicated to “promoting and defending human dignity in all its stages,” has produced a video featuring Andrea Bocelli, in which the internationally acclaimed blind singer tells a “little story” about abortion. In the video, Bocelli plays the piano while recounting the following:

So, for this occasion I want to tell you a little story. This is how the story goes: A young pregnant wife has been hospitalized for a simple attack of appendicitis. The doctors had to apply some ice on her stomach and when the treatments ended, the doctors suggested that she abort the child. They told her it was the best solution because the baby would be born with some disability. But the young brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born. That woman was my mother, and I was the child.

Maybe I’m partisan, but I can say that it was the right choice. And I hope this could encourage many mothers that sometime find themselves in difficult situations, in those moments when life is complicated, but want to save the life of their baby.

Born in 1958, Andrea Bocelli was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma, and was blind by age 12. In an article posted at Catholic Exchange (June 7, 2010), Peter J. Smith wrote, “For years Bocelli used to be an agnostic, but returned to his Christian Catholic faith in 1994 in part due to reading the works of Leo Tolstoy, which are said to have convinced him that life was not random chance, but had a purpose.”

“What would the world have been like without Andrea Bocelli, Italian pop, opera, and classical singer,” asked Mr. Smith. “With millions of infants having been victim to abortion, the blind international music sensation has revealed that he too could have been one more abortion statistic.” [Andrea Bocelli’s video can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QfKCGTfn3o]

Comment:  Andrea Bocelli’s moving testimony calls to mind an event related by Rev. Bernard Ruffin in “Padre Pio: The True Story.” After a woman had related her sins during Confession, St. Padre Pio said to her, “Try to remember the other sin.” On three different occasions during Confession, Padre Pio asked this woman to remember that sin, but she always professed that she could not. During the third visit, Padre Pio said to her in a loud voice, “Don’t you know he could have been a good priest, a bishop, even a cardinal?” The woman then confessed that she had had an abortion.

Andrea Bocelli referred to his mother as the “brave young wife.” It is fitting praise. How many young women must sit terrified in doctor’s offices or hospital rooms as they listen to seemingly “good” and “reasonable” reasons for aborting their children. Many of these arguments will hinge on the “good” of the child. And, let’s face it, “the good of the child” is the last refuge of the pro-abort. But, how many notable individuals, people who persevered and made their mark on the world, were born into far from ideal circumstances? Jazz pianist George Shearing was born blind. Olympic figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi was born with club feet. Irish author, painter and poet Christy Brown (subject of the film, “My Left Foot”) was born with cerebral palsy.

The list of such personages is prodigious. And, yet, in another reality, their lives would have been summarily snuffed out with all the ceremony of a lame horse or rabid dog being “put down.” In fact, on May 28, 2006, the Sunday Times, UK reported the following scarcely believable statistics (Lois Rogers, “Babies With Club Feet Aborted”):

More than 20 babies have been aborted in advanced pregnancy because scans showed that they had club feet, a deformity readily corrected by surgery or physiotherapy.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics covering the years from 1996 to 2004, a further four babies were aborted because they had webbed fingers or extra digits, which are also corrected by simple surgery. All the terminations took place late in pregnancy, after 20 weeks.

Last year, according to campaigners, a healthy baby was aborted in the sixth month at a hospital in southeast England after ultrasound images indicated part of its foot was missing.

A doctor quoted in the article cited a case in which a 20-week-old fetus was found to have a missing hand. “The father did not want the pregnancy to proceed,” related the doctor, “because of his perception that the child would not be able to do all the usual things like sport.” In another case, David Wildgrove, a 41-year-old computer programmer, stated, “It was strongly suggested that we consider abortion after they found our baby had a club foot.” Fortunately, Wildgrove, who was “appalled” at the advice, did not heed it. “We resisted,” he said, “the problem was treated and he now runs around and plays football with everyone else.”

Another story related about St. Padre Pio tells of a woman who aborted her baby after her previous children were all born deaf and mute. As she approached his confessional, Pio shouted, “Assassin! You have murdered your child!" He did not hear her confession. Eventually, after bearing another child, a boy, that was once again deaf and mute, the woman gave birth to a completely healthy girl. Pio told the woman: “You see what comes of doing God’s will? This little girl will always be good, beautiful, clever. She will always remain beside her mother.”

Pio’s accusation, “Assassin!”, will sound harsh to modern ears. And perhaps it would be imprudent if addressed to a young woman who is genuinely frightened, alone, confused, someone at the lowest point in her life who has nothing or no one to turn to. But Pio’s accusation was addressed to someone who exhibited the same cavalier attitude expressed in the Sunday Times article. Such calls for the murder of infants because of – what? – club feet or an incomplete limb are senseless. “Perfection” and freedom from suffering are not guaranteed in this world. Not in the least.

 “Consider the possibilities” is a ubiquitous slogan in our world. It is used to peddle college courses, self-improvement seminars, weight loss, management skills, you name it. But what about the possibilities of each and every child growing in its mother’s womb?

I recall a story I read many years ago. In it, a thief kills a man while robbing him. During the course of the story, the culprit contracts a rare disease and then discovers, to his horror, that the man he killed was the only doctor who could have helped him.

One does not have to be Catholic, Protestant, or even “religious” to any degree to understand the implications of even one aborted baby. Only a psychopath would approach a stranger on the street and snuff out his life on the spot. And yet each and every preborn infant is just that – a “stranger” waiting to make his or her entrance on the world stage. The child could grow up to be a surgeon or composer. He or she might grow up to be a plumber or stay-at-home mom. The child could also grow up to be a thief or worse. The simple fact is – we cannot tell what the child will become. Like Bocelli, Shearing, Yamaguci and Brown, each living human being, including those contemplating abortion, has the chance, at least, to give life a “go.” Everyone – without exception – deserves at least that much in an already hostile world.

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