The Day for Life (…) every year highlights the value of human life and the absolute duty to defend it, from conception to its natural end.

(…)

That’s why the defense of life has as its fulcrum the welcoming of those who have been conceived and remain inside the maternal womb, sheltered by the mother as if in a loving embrace that unites them both.

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Voluntarily eliminating life in its blossoming is, in every case, a betrayal of our vocation, as well as of the pact that binds generations together, which allows us to look forward with hope. Where there is life, there is hope! But when life itself is violated at its emergence, what remains is no longer the grateful and enchanted welcome of a gift, but a cold calculation of what we have and what we can use. Then even life is reduced to a one-time-use consumer good.

(…)

In your cultural action you have witnessed that all those who are conceived are sons of all society, and their killing in huge numbers, with the endorsement of States, is a serious problem that undermines the foundations of the construction of justice, compromising the proper solution of any other human and social issue.

In light of the Day of Life tomorrow, I will take this occasion to give this plea to all politicians so that they, irregardless of the convictions and faiths of everyone, will place as the cornerstone of the common good the defense of life of all those who are yet to be born and who are to be enrolled in this society, to which they bring newness, future and hope”

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Pope Francis

Speech to the members of the Italian Directive Council

of the Movement for Life

Feb 2nd, 2019

(my translation, with the help of Vatican News)