Fraudulent Fertilisation

On some oc­ca­sions he had ques­tioned him­self on this point, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the night when his sens­es re­mind­ed him that his re­pressed viril­i­ty was lying in wait. He be­lieved in God, he had de­liv­ered him­self to Him and was pre­pared to ful­fil the mis­sion which had sup­pos­ed­ly been en­trust­ed to him on this earth. He had come from his na­tive Spain to raise cross­es in Latin Amer­i­ca; he fell madly in love with Ar­genti­na as soon as he ar­rived and he had de­cid­ed to die here. Now he had be­fore him the lam­en­ta­ble scene rep­re­sent­ed by the preg­nant girl, bathed in tears, weighed down with sui­ci­dal thoughts. He let his in­doc­tri­nat­ed spir­it flow freely, search­ing for ideas that were stuck in him like in­vis­i­ble tent pegs...

“My child, you have a gift from God in your belly, a won­der­ful mir­a­cle which you should be thank­ful to Him for. Life is sa­cred, it comes from God, only He is al­lowed to take it away. We have no right to ques­tion these prin­ci­ples, my child, you must ac­cept it as it is. With time, all your sor­row will dis­si­pate, you will get over this dif­fi­cult time. I’m sure that in the fu­ture you’ll look at your child and be amazed that you didn’t want to have it. Think about that.”

The girl lis­tened in an­guish to the words of the priest; they showed her that she was in­ex­orably lost, her life could never be the same again.

“Good­bye to my dreams,” the girl thought, “no­body will love me, I won’t be able to get mar­ried in white as I’d dreamed. I’ll be treat­ed as a leper, or like a loose woman. They’ll think I’ve slept with lots of boys, that I’m crazy, a whore, I don’t feel ma­ture yet! I won’t be able to bear such a bru­tal change. God, why don’t you help me?”

When she re­alised that the priest was watch­ing her in her de­lib­er­a­tions, the girl said,

“But Fa­ther, you must give me some so­lu­tion, if I have a child my life will be ru­ined. Dad has al­ready had three heart at­tacks, he’ll die if he finds out, it would be as if I’d killed him with my own hands. I’ll kill my­self rather than have a baby, I can’t ac­cept the idea of being a moth­er, not yet! I need you un­der­stand­ing, Fa­ther, your help.”

Mabel went on sob­bing dis­con­so­late­ly; she was on the verge of a com­plete break­down, her sens­es could not go on as­sim­i­lat­ing that atro­cious re­al­i­ty which an­ni­hi­lat­ed every­thing she had imag­ined for her­self. Her suf­fer­ing was too in­tense, she could not go on liv­ing like that, she need­ed to get away from that truth, no mat­ter how. The priest was not un­aware of the girl’s col­lapse, he tried to com­fort her.

“What’s your name, lit­tle one?”

“Ma...​bel,” she an­swered, her voice choked with tears.

“Well, girl, calm down,” the con­fes­sor went on, “think that it’s the Cre­ator who has breathed life into you. You have no right to med­dle, I re­peat, it’s sa­cred. Even your own ex­is­tence de­mands the cre­ative ac­tion of God. Those who stray from that which He has es­tab­lished, not only of­fend the Di­vine Majesty, but also de­grade them­selves and the whole of hu­man­i­ty.”

Tomás was pleased with him­self for re­mem­ber­ing so ac­cu­rate­ly the an­cient words of John XXIII.

“Think of that being that lives in­side you, how could you kill that in­no­cent crea­ture? Re­mem­ber the holy com­mand­ment: ‘thou shalt not kill’; na­ture it­self which clam­ours in the same way.”

“But Fa­ther, you don’t un­der­stand me, I can’t stand this! I’d soon­er die than to waste my life like this, don’t you re­alise? What am I going to tell my friends, my par­ents? How could I go back to school? I’d have to leave. No! I’ll kill my­self! I’ll do any­thing!”

“Tell me, girl, why didn’t you think of it be­fore? How did you get into this sit­u­a­tion? You must be re­spon­si­ble for your acts... You should have fore­seen it. Now you have a life to worry about, the purest, the most won­der­ful thing. Have you thought that this crea­ture is grow­ing in­side you, in­de­pen­dent­ly? This being is the car­ri­er of a mes­sage of love, it’s de­fence­less, out in the open, no­body is oblig­ed to pro­tect it as you are. It doesn’t mat­ter what you want, it doesn’t mat­ter what you suf­fer. This lit­tle child is real, it’s al­ready with us, to kill it would be a vile mur­der, there are no ar­gu­ments to make it ac­cept­able. Can’t you imag­ine how that being would suf­fer if it were torn out, de­stroyed in the womb? Can’t you imag­ine the pain it would suf­fer? How can you even think about it? Don’t do it, my child, or you’ll re­gret it until your dying day. Life is what sets us apart, what makes us priv­i­leged and makes us su­pe­ri­or to sim­ple things. That baby which is grow­ing in­side you de­serves to live.”

“In time it’ll be a per­son like you, who also has the right to love, to grow, to be­come an in­di­vid­ual il­lu­mi­nat­ed by God. It’s not his fault, he didn’t ask to come into this world, you’re re­spon­si­ble. You should as­sume the com­mit­ment you have un­der­tak­en with God and ac­cept the con­se­quences of not hav­ing fol­lowed his teach­ings. Be­fore think­ing about mur­der, it’s your duty to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty of giv­ing your baby away in adop­tion, of giv­ing him to a good fam­i­ly which of­fers him a fu­ture. No­body’s forc­ing you to raise him; but what you can’t do is kill him. Don’t even think about it, it’s pun­ish­able by the law of God and also by the law of men. In our coun­try, those who com­mit abor­tions are crim­i­nals.”

“I couldn’t give my child away, Fa­ther,” said Mabel, hid­ing her face in her hands.

“You must be able to! Do you think you can do what­ev­er you want to? It’s your oblig­a­tion to have the baby! This is what hap­pens to young peo­ple for read­ing dan­ger­ous things, for not pray­ing, for not de­sir­ing or lov­ing pen­i­tence. Bad things like the one you’re suf­fer­ing are the fruit of so many ob­scene spec­ta­cles, im­prop­er con­ver­sa­tions, the con­tin­u­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for sin to which teenagers are ex­posed. My child, you haven’t paid at­ten­tion to the ad­vice of the church, nor em­barked on the bat­tle against sen­su­al­i­ty with the prop­er de­gree of force. It amazes me to see that free sex ed­u­ca­tion is still preached. They want to spread it in schools as if it was a magic so­lu­tion... They want to give pre­ven­ta­tive in­struc­tion to young peo­ple and they don’t re­alise that they’re being pre­ma­ture­ly ex­posed to dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions. Here you have the re­sult, look what’s hap­pen­ing to you.”

Mabel raised her dis­lo­cat­ed face and with a ges­ture that ex­pressed her fail­ure to un­der­stand any­thing, replied:

“But, Fa­ther, no one ever taught me any­thing... I had no idea what sex was, I hard­ly have any idea now. I’m learn­ing every­thing on the job, through ne­ces­si­ty. I didn’t know what I was doing, nor what con­se­quences it could have.”

“But, lit­tle one, how did you get into this sit­u­a­tion? Who is the fa­ther of the child?”