Reporting of BastaBugie editorial team

(AUTOMATIC READING)
Forty years after the approval of the law 194, who introduced abortion in Italy, many of its supporters wonder how it is possible that a high number of conscientious objector doctors persists. The answer lies in the depths of the gaze or in the voice broken by emotion of some of them, like Dr. Antonio Oriente, 64 year old Sicilian gynecologist.
Today he is a doctor who works to convince undecided women to give birth to the children they are carrying, but for many years his hands performed abortions, “they killed other people's children”, as he himself bluntly admits in an interview with In Terris.
His professional history is intertwined with his personal one. And he started doing it in the 1980s, among the torments of a man who could not find serenity. “My wife, pediatrician, he adored and cared for children, but we couldn't have children of our own, not even with the path of artificial insemination, and she suffered terribly from it”, tells. He spent endless hours in the hospital room, trying to exorcise suffering with work commitment. “I was away from home for two days in a row – dice -, all absorbed in my work, which also consisted of performing abortions, in killing other people's children, while I couldn't have any of my own”.
THE TURNING POINT
The Dr. East could not understand the fact that medical science, which he had studied with passion and almost adoration, was unable to provide answers to his and his wife's need for parenthood. The beginning of the turning point came on an evening that seemed to herald the usual bitterness.
“It was the first months of 1986 – tells -, I had finished my shift at the clinic but had decided not to go home, I locked myself in my study with my head in my hands, thinking back to the pain I was experiencing with my wife and crying”. Precisely in those moments, a couple of people passed in front of the office that the doctor. Oriente had been following for infertility for some time. “They saw the lights – explains – and knowing that the clinic was closed at that time, they came in fearing that I had left the switch on or that I might have problems”. And in fact they found the doctor who treated them feeling unwell. “With them – he states – I found the courage to confide”.
The two people listened, with that compassion that those who experience similar suffering can have, and then they said: “Doctor, we don't have a solution to the problem, after all we continue to come to her, but we can introduce you to a person who has given us serenity and meaning to what we are experiencing: Jesus Christ”.
These were people who had recently become involved in an ecclesial movement, Renewal in the Spirit. “Incredulous but intrigued, I approached too”, says Dr. East. “One evening – continues – I entered the church and found myself meditating in front of the crucifix, asking myself 'how can I ask the Lord for a child, when I kill other people's?’.
And then the images of the many children I had aborted flashed before my eyes”. A question that served to delve into one's interiority. “I felt understood by a merciful Father – tells – and I realized that I had to change my perspective as a doctor, because the doctor defends life at all costs, it does not suppress it”.
Change of perspective that condensed into a gesture. “I took a piece of paper and wrote 'Never again death, brother Antonio', with the firm intention of no longer dedicating myself to abortion but to life”. The turning point was immediate. “In the counseling center I began to advise girls to keep their baby”, explains. But a turning point was waiting for Dr. East also at home.
“One day I found my wife vomiting in the bathroom, I thought of a passing malaise – explains – then she took pregnancy tests which, However, they were negative”. But the stomach aches continued and her period still didn't arrive in the days to come, so the woman took a blood test which gave the expected result: was expecting a child. “After eight months Domenico was born – tells – and immediately afterwards, Luigi also arrived, two children who are a blessing from God.
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COMMITMENT IN THE CONSULTANCY
And “mandate” that Dr. Oriente carries out every day, we manage to talk to each other on the phone for the interview right in a break between one interview and another with the women in the clinic. A place, the latter, which is a real one “field hospital”, where more than words, there is a need for affection and sharing.
“When I see that the reasons are not enough to convince them not to have an abortion – he states -, I get up from the chair, I go around the desk and hug them. So many of them are convinced to keep the baby”. And the assistance continues even after the birth of the baby, “we help young people in economic difficulty – explains – offering them an apartment for which we pay the rent”.
“Right – admits the gynecologist – we work with many difficulties, why the health authority doesn't help us and why the clinic is considered an 'abortion factory'”, even though it is the same law 194 to ensure that women are helped in these places “to remove the causes that would lead to the termination of the pregnancy”, “offering you all the necessary help both during pregnancy and after giving birth”.
Forty years later, many ignore this passage of the law 194. And perhaps they also ignore the story of Dr. Antonio Oriente, otherwise perhaps they would change their minds about abortion.
Note from BastaBugie: for further insights into the human story of Doctor Oriente, you can click on the following link
MY NAME IS ANTONIO ORIENTE, I AM A GYNECOLOGIST AND, UNTIL A FEW YEARS AGO, WITH THESE HANDS I KILLED OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN
by Sabrina Pietrangeli Paluzzi
The extraordinary testimony of a repentant abortionist (without mincing words)
http://www.bastabugie.it/it/articoli.php?id=1518