This weekend demonstrators took to the streets in Madrid to opposes the socialist government’s proposed liberalization of national abortion laws. The proposed alterations would make abortions widely available and allow girls as young as 16 to obtain abortions without parental consent.
United Families joined with the 42 other Spanish groups that gathered to denounce this legislation and stand up for life. And it was a huge success. Estimates of attendance run anywhere from 250,000 to almost 2 million.
Whatever the actual number may be, it was a large crowd with a large voice in favor of life. The many demonstrators carried signs such as:
- “Every Life Matters”
- “For Life, Women and Motherhood”
- “Women Against Abortion”
- “Madrid 2009, Capital of Life”
- “Right to Life”
During the demonstration, individuals across the political and social spectrum addressed the crowd with fervent support for life, mother hood, and even fatherhood.
Actor Eduardo Verástegui, who starred in and produced the pro-life film Bella, told the crowd:
“Men in society have taken as their own the radical feminist message that men have nothing to do with the decision to go ahead with the life that they have had a part in conceiving. This paternal responsibility has been drowned and many men, the young especially, have come to believe that they have nothing to say and that their ’50 percent’ is of no value in defending human life. Let us put an end to the padlock that gender ideology has placed over the mouths of men!”
The magnitude of the march has made it abundantly clear that despite the government’s liberal agenda, Spain is still a country that honors life and the family, and the people of Spain will not allow a radical government to violate those values.