For Life

Jesus, the Divine Prophet, came to Earth to save its creatures. This is the reason for our constant concern in defending Life.

Tela: Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520)

Afresco: Michelangelo (1475-1564)

One of the biblical prophecies—which really captures the attention of those who take an interest in them—refers to the prediction of Jesus in His Prophetic Sermon. Availing Himself of the strong warning from Daniel (11:31, 12:11), in the Old Testament, He announces ultimate facts of the apocalyptic cycle that is coming to an end:

15 So when you see the abomination of the desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand - qui legit, intelligat),

16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains . . . (Gospel of Jesus according to Matthew 24:15 and 16).

In my analysis of this passage in Somos todos Profetas [We are all Prophets], I ask: what holier place could there be in the world besides the intimacy of God’s creatures, people’s heart, brain, and Soul?

I leave this for consideration mainly to those who are mothers and have had the unique opportunity of experiencing the emblematic contribution of generating Life: imagine the maternal womb!. . . A sacred and holy place! It shelters Life, whose existence pre-exists fertilization of the egg by the sperm. Our origin is found in the Spiritual World! It is something simple for mothers to understand, inasmuch as there is nothing more powerful and scrutinizing than the maternal heart.

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Arquivo BV

The famous poetess from the State of Goiás, Brazil, Cora Coralina (1889-1985), who was a confectioner by profession, was only educated up to elementary school level and published her first book at the age of 75. She gave birth to four children and was able to beautifully highlight in her writings: “You have the divine gift of being a mother. Humanity is present within you.”

And from the Spiritual World, Brother Flexa Dourada [Golden Arrow], through the psychophony of the Legionnaire sensitive Chico Periotto, sends this beautiful message to all mothers: “Every child who is born in Humanity is a light that is lit by God, by Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit. The mother shows the beauty of a family living together with a child in the home. The little one is the flower that Jesus presented her with.”

Legal defense of the fetus

In Article 2, Chapter 1 (Personality and capacity) of Title I (Natural persons) of the Brazilian Civil Code of 2002, we find: “The civil personality of an individual commences at his birth with life; but the law protects the rights of the unborn person from his conception.”

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In fact, one of the great banners of the Legion of Good Will (LGW) and the Religion of God, of the Christ, and of the Holy Spirit is to fight for the constitutional right of the fetus, guaranteeing it the legal prerogative to be born and to live. In the 1980s, I gave a talk in these terms:

Victims’ Rights

Those who ignore their Spiritual Duties will not know how to respect Human Rights in its entirety, including the victims’ rights. They go beyond the levels reached by their most sagacious defenders, most of the time linked to an analysis of the facts that are based exclusively on the material criterion, which is not sufficient. Citizenship, in its broad meaning, is not restricted to the citizen’s body, inasmuch as it comes from his or her Eternal Spirit. . . .

True meaning of social concern

The official report of a study carried out by the North American Senate in 1981, in which the greatest specialists in the subject participated, says precisely that: “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings*1.” (The boldface is ours.)

Vivian R. Ferreira

Reprodução BV

In an interview with the Zenit news portal on March 3, 2006, Professor Alice Teixeira Ferreira, Ph.D., from the Department of Biophysics of the Federal University of São Paulo/São Paulo Medical School (UNIFESP/EPM) in Brazil, comments: “The scientist who says he does not know when human life begins is lying. Any text on clinical (or human) embryology states that it begins at conception. In 1827, with the increase in the sensitivity of the microscope, which allowed the egg and sperm to be seen, Karl Ernst von Baer described fertilization and embryonic development. European doctors, in face of such evidence, started defending the human being from conception, and against abortion. . . .  This is a scientific fact, and not a dogma of the Catholic Church or of any other religion. In order not to say it is outdated, embryologists in 2005 stated that not only does the life of the human being originate with fertilization but that, from the molecular point of view, the first division of the zygote defines our destiny.” (The boldface are ours.)

Altered statistics

This is a sign that a cruel culture is spreading in the heart of society. It is a brutal act against the existence of mothers and babies.

And unfortunately the statistics linked to this subject are often manipulated with the purpose of winning the support of the population for abortion, supposedly to protect female health. Despite this, there are a huge number of people who resist this pressure. We observe this in a work produced by Dr. Maria D. Dolly Guimarães, from the São Paulo Federation of Movements in Defense of Life, dated June 22, 2007*2. In it she argues:

“It is said that ‘thousands’ of women die every year in Brazil because of illegal abortion and consequently badly executed.

“The official statistics of the Ministry of Health record less than 200 maternal deaths from this cause and over these last few years the number has continuously and significantly reduced (from 344 in 1980 to 114 in 2002) without there having been any change in the legislation. Without a doubt, this is an underestimated number, but the total number is certainly not underestimated, in other words, for all causes of maternal deaths each year, considering that death by abortion is the third or fourth cause. Therefore, deaths by abortion can be calculated at around 500 or fewer every year. This is undoubtedly a worrying fact and it is our duty to reduce it, but we are not talking about ‘thousands of deaths’. (It is interesting that in our country more women—around 3,000—die every year from contact with poisonous plants and/or animals than from abortion and so far this is not a public health issue!) . . .

 “Another statement that does not correspond to the truth, when discussing about abortion, is to say that the numbers [of death] would reduce with its legalization. If this is happening in some European countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium) it is because in these countries the birth rate is reducing as a whole and, therefore, so is the number of abortions. But in the vast majority of nations that have legalized it the number keeps on rising or has stabilized at figures much higher than those recorded before the legalization. A typical example is that of the USA, where around one million legal abortions occur every year, while before legalization the number did not exceed two hundred thousand. . . .”

Paulo Francis: abortion is degrading

Divulgação

On January 27, 1991, the controversial and beloved Brazilian journalist Paulo Francis (1930-1997) reconsidered his opinion in O Estado de S. Paulo [newspaper]: “At first, I thought that it was a clear cut case in favor of abortion. Like many deductions taken from intellectual abstractions, experience has modified this position. . . . The neglect with which women get pregnant and ‘dispatch’ fetuses to the other world, wherever the other world is, gives me a certain loathing. A million and a half abortions a year. It’s too many. . . .  It’s degrading. . . .”

Very timely here are the words of Renato Godinho from Joinville, Brazil, which were posted on the Observatório da Imprensa website on 9/5/2005: “Before legalizing the practice of abortion to protect the health of the mother, we have to think about a society in which the woman has no reason to eliminate her child.” Exactly!

Corruption and impunity also kill

It is not by liquidating life that social problems will be solved. They lack legitimate solution that fights, for example, impunity. This leads to the establishment of the pandemic corruption that affects or prevents taking and sustaining effective measures relating to health, study, security, and the inalienable rights of the individual and of the multitudes. Abortion is a crime that injures innocent lives with death. In like manner, the death penalty does not represent an alternative to crime, because, as I have already stated, it only catches petty thieves.

Claudio Zilio

Life, for an instant

The renowned Brazilian lawyer Ives Gandra Martins, a man who is passionate about Life, invites us to reflect deeply on his comments when asked about bill 1135/91, which reaches the madness of proposing the legalization of abortion up to the ninth month of pregnancy “which is the same as saying that it would be a crime a moment after birth and it would cease to be so a moment before birth.”

Spiritualizing nations

We shall come back to this subject. Spiritualizing individuals is an urgent task.

References:

*1 According to the Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to the Senate Judiciary Committee S-158. 97th Congress. 1st Session 1981, p. 7. 

*2 Work of Dr. Maria D. Dolly Guimarães — http://noticias.cancaonova.com/noticia.php?id=235421.