The Italian Pro-Life Movement expresses deep emotion at the recent news of a newborn baby placed on Sunday 19 April in the cradle located in front of the Red Cross headquarters, in the Loreto district of Bergamo.
One cannot remain indifferent to the gesture of a mother, or of a father and a mother, who, placing their newborn child in the cradle for life, entrusts all their love to a few words: «I wish you a life full of joy and serenity, which we cannot give you at this moment. But you were loved so much. I love you very much.” The newborn is just a few days old, is well, was immediately cared for and is now in the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital.
«The gesture moves and questions” says Marina Casini, president of the Italian Movement for Life. «Behind that choice there is a story that we don’t know, probably marked by difficulty and anguish, but also by a clear decision: not to deny the birth, not to abandon, but to entrust. We are faced with a story that nevertheless speaks of acceptance, love, hope, trust. Entrusting your child to an entire community so that they can welcome him, protect him and guarantee him a future is an act of humility.”
The “cribs for life”, widespread in Italy (about sixty) were created to offer a safe, anonymous and legal possibility to mothers in difficulty. “They are simple but valuable devices,” he says Natalia Marrese representative of the cradles for life of the Italian Movement for Life. «A protected, heated space, accessible at any time, which immediately triggers the intervention of the health workers. They are not just technical structures: they are concrete signs of a society that does not look the other waywho holds out his arms even when circumstances are difficult and experiences are tormented.”
The Italian Movement for Life has always supported these initiatives, promoting their diffusion and offering the cultural motivations that support them. The Cradle, in fact, is much more than a physical place: it is the symbol of a community that welcomes without judging, that becomes close, that recognizes value and dignity in every life. «It is a safeguard of humanity for the newborn, but also for his mother. The response that is generated around these events is striking” Casini continues, “a spontaneous wave of affection, attention and solidarity. That child, within a few hours, is no longer alone. He is “one of us”. He is welcomed, recognized, almost symbolically adopted by an entire community. It’s as if, for a moment, we all remembered that every child is, after all, everyone’s child.”
Alongside this possibility, it is also important to remember the right to give birth anonymously: every woman can give birth free of charge and safely in hospital, choosing not to be named in the birth certificate and not to recognize the child, maintaining her confidentiality. An opportunity that protects mother and child together.
The reflection then broadens. If society is capable of such an intense mobilization of care and welcome for a newborn baby who has already been born, it becomes coherent to extend the same gaze, the same responsibility and the same tenderness also to children who have yet to be born and to their mothers. In conclusion, the Cradle says exactly this: every person born and not yet born deserves to be welcomed, always. And an authentically human society is one that knows how to be close, without conditions.
This is why the Italian Movement for Life has always supported cradles for life: their simple visible presence saves not only the children who are placed there, but also those whose mothers at the sight of the cradle can feel encouraged to say “Yes” to that son or daughter they are cradling in their womb.
