Editorial > Editorial Archive

Buenos Aires, Sunday, March 25, 2007

Father Oscar Pezzarini

Day of the Unborn Child

Some years have already gone by since in our country March 25 has been established as the date on which the “Day of the Unborn Child” is to be celebrated, and there are also other countries who join us in this “celebration”. It is encouraging that we remember and somehow “celebrate” this day, although it often is quite difficult to understand that on one hand Government establishes a day for us to think and reflect on the “unborn child” and on the other, some years later this same Government states all kind of arguments and laws in order to “favor” and even legalize that children should definitively not be born. May this day help us all to reflect, to pray, and to go on in our commitment of the “defense of Life”.

Some years have already gone by since in our country March 25 has been established as the date on which the “Day of the Unborn Child” is to be celebrated, and there are also other countries who join us in this “celebration”.

For Church Liturgy it is the Feast of the Annunciation, the Incarnation of the Lord, recalling how Jesus was begotten in a “miraculous” way after the Angel Gabriel announced this to Mary.

It is encouraging that we remember and somehow “celebrate” this day, although it often is quite difficult to understand that on one hand Government establishes a day for us to think and reflect on the “unborn child” and on the other, some years later this same Government states all kind of arguments and laws in order to “favor” and even legalize that children should definitively not be born.

Anyway, this should not be the reason for us to stop expressing our conviction and certainty that the most important thing is Life, that Man does not own life up to the point of considering and deciding when Life should start and when it should end, or what is worse, “who should be born and who not”.

There is no doubt that this is up to God, as well as there is no doubt that each time Man tried to put himself in “God's place” taking decisions which are only up to Him he was wrong, and besides he harmed Mankind itself.

Just to reflect on them and in order for everyone to reach a conclusion I want to quote some paragraphs from the recitals of Decree 1406/98 which declares for every year the date of March 25 as the “Day of the Unborn Child”:

That as a policy of effective concretion of the universal protection of Human Rights for all men and all nations, particularly in the Declaration of Rights of Geneva of 1924 on the Rights of the Child, in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1959 and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1989, the international community has pointed out the child as a subject worthy of special consideration.

That the Introduction of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states: “by its lack of physical and mental maturity the child needs special protection and care, including due legal protection, before as well as after birth".

That but for the natural protection offered by its mother the child is a being of extreme fragility and defenselessness, particularly in its prebirth stage.

That the child, before as well as after birth “the child must grow up in a family in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding in order to achieve an harmonic development of its personality", as is stated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this includes special care of its psychic as as much as physical health.

That the right to life is not a question of ideology, nor of religion, but an outcome of human nature.

That the status as person, such as being susceptible of acquiring rights and of contracting obligations is a constitutional regulation, and that for our Constitution as well as for out Civil and Penal Legislation, life starts at the very moment of conception.

That it is considered advisable to celebrate the Day of the Unborn Child on March 25 of every year, date in which Christendom celebrates the Announcement to the Virgin Mary, by virtue of which the most celebrated birth by both Christians and Nonchristian he is the one of the Baby Jesus whose conception happened on this date.

That on this date also the Anniversary of the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae is commemorated, which Pope John Paul II has given to all men of good will.