Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jul 19, 2018 / 14:29 pm
Priests who work in the slums of Buenos Aires announced Tuesday a "Home of the Motherly Embrace" to care for women in crisis pregnancies.
The initiative, presented at Christ the Worker parish July 17, seeks to respond to the needs of women who live in the slums and also is a sign of the commitment of the Church to defending the lives of the unborn and their mothers.
Besides lamenting the progress of the abortion bill which passed in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and is now being debated in the Senate, the priests explained that the Home of the Motherly Embrace will receive teens and young adult women with at-risk pregnancies who are abandoned and who may be tempted to abort, as well as women who have procured abortions.
They will be provided nutrition, medical care and checkups, psychological support, and legal and social counseling during the pregnancy and their babies' first years, until they enter the educational system.
The center will seek to facilitate access to maternity policies and programs, and, if necessary, the process of adoption.
"In a family atmosphere that welcomes, embraces and accompanies (we) will especially seek to encourage and strengthen (the women). The center will also receive and accompany teenage or young adult dads in their growing responsibilities," the priests said in a statement.
"We choose to take on the responsibility for these dramatic situations as a community and we're not uncritically awaiting the establishment of an actual throwaway culture of human beings."
The priests will carry out their work "there (in the slums) where life goes forward despite the difficulties; and every pregnancy, every girl and every boy, is awaited and welcomed as a gift, with the hope that a future different and better than the existing one awaits him or her."
The proposal was signed by four bishops, more than 20 priests, and two nuns.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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