HOW TO GIVE LIFE A CHANCE ?
FR. PAWEŁ RYTEL-ADRIANIK, A SPOKESMAN OF THE POLISH EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE
We got used to the fact that the fifth commandment of the Decalogue sounds: ‘Do not kill!’. The original writing of this commandment, which in Hebrew sounds: ‘Lo tircach’, can be also translated as : ‘Do not murder!’ (Exodus 20.13). However, it is not sufficient to transform this commandment into legal norms, but into life.
Recently the public opinion has been shocked by the news about a baby from the Hospital named Holy Family in Warsaw who survived abortion and was left without any help, till it died. However, not only lack of help is an assassination on human life, but also every act of abortion. In this context we must recall the strong words of St. John Paul II: ‘(…) be in solidarity with life. I direct this call to all my compatriots regardless of their beliefs. To all people, not excluding anybody. I repeat it from this place, what I said last October: ‘The nation which kills its children, is the nation without the future’ (Kalisz, 7 June 1997).
If somebody does not want to accept a baby, she can leave the baby in hospital or in a ‘life window’ anonymously. Addresses of such ‘windows’ are available on Internet. A baby who is left there, receives immediate medical help, is placed in an incubator till an ambulance arrives. There are also procedures begun to give a name to a baby. Babies left in the ‘life windows’ are often quickly adopted.
The first contemporary ‘life window’ in Poland was established in Kraków on 19 March 2006. After ten years of such ‘windows’ there are 50 of them in our country. About 100 babies have been saved in them so far. Nuns who often take care of them, are happy about every baby, whom parents allowed to live.
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„Niedziela” 12/2016