This year, the March for Life Romania and the Republic of Moldova, which has the theme “For Life. For Parents. For Children”, gets online. Pandemic restrictions determined organizers to reschedule it on May 17, the National Family Day in Romania.
As public gathering restrictions will continue after the state of emergency, this edition will turn into a Live on Facebook event.
It will be held on the Bucharest March for Life’s Facebook page on Sunday, May 17, from 18:00 hours, local time, by two associations: Romania’s Pro-Life Students and Romania for Life.
In their press release, they invite all Romanians to join them online, including Romanians from the diaspora and Romanians from the historic regions of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
The keynote speakers will be Live on Facebook: Eliza-Maria Cloțea, President of Romania’s Pro-Life Students, Alexandra Nadane, President of Romania for Life, Raluca Blejușcă, pro-life singer and a mother of five, Lavinia Stan, parental coach and a mother of six, Adelina Fronea, President of LifeCall, and Alex Ilie, Executive Director of the Alliance Romania without Orphans and father of four adopted children.
The speeches will be followed by the concert Live for Life on Facebook, featuring the artists Raluca Blejușcă, Alma Boiangiu, Ioana Picoș and Ana Teodora.
The March for Life invites Romanians to speak of lack of support they may have experienced during a pregnancy crisis, about in utero diagnosis which may have resulted in pressure to terminate their pregnancy, about miscarrying a pregnancy or losing a child at birth or even about a turning point in their life when support from those around was essential.
Those who have not experienced such issues are invited to look carefully around: “You will soon find some who were confronted with such issues. And they are not so far as you might think. They are among us. Some may have been through critical moments without you even knowing it and without letting you stand by them through the ordeal”, is mentioned in the press release.
The organizers took the initiative of collecting pregnancy crisis testimonies, which can be sent and read here and here. Thus, the primary goal of the movement is creating public awareness on pro-life issues in Romania.
The March for Life Romania and the Republic of Moldova has also advanced proposals to create a favorable context for the mothers and families to get real help.
The proposed measures include:
- establishing support centers where women in pregnancy crisis can benefit upon request of free psychological counselling and professional social assistance;
- legalizing adoption after birth, according to the American and Australian models of good practice
- supporting a positive culture of adoption;
- allowing mothers who have miscarried to legally bury their miscarried children, upon their request.
The March for Life Romania and the Republic of Moldova does not promote a legal ban on abortion in Romania. Instead, it promotes a change of heart in society and draws attention to the consequences of abortion in Romania.
In its yearly press releases, it has made available abortion statistics for Romania, the Republic of Moldova and the rest of the world.
Since 1958 to the present, the official number of aborted babies in Romania (almost 23 million) has surpassed the actual population of the country. But the actual numbers must be much higher. Statistics do not include abortions made in private clinics, abortions made by Romanian women working abroad and chemical abortions made in state and private clinics from Romania.
The March for Life is a global movement promoting the right to life from conception to natural death, which was started in the United States in 1974. Marches for Life are organized yearly around the Globe.
In Romania, the first edition was organized in 2008 in the Western city of Timișoara. Last year, 670 cities and towns from Romania and the Republic of Moldova organized the March for Life on the same date and other pro-life activities during the month of March, designated as the Month for Life since 2015.
Photo: Basilica.ro / Raluca Ene
