(LifeSiteNews) — In India, over 45 thousand babies are killed by abortion on average every day. Many babies who survive abortion are dipped alive into hot water to “finish the job.”
In 2021, India legalized abortion through six months of pregnancy, and it is now considering moving this line farther until 28 weeks.
This has sparked a growing pro-life revival in the Catholic Church in India: Indian people are rising up to oppose such abortion barbarity. Last year, 600 people attended the nation’s second ever March for Life. On Saturday, just one year later, ten bishops and 7,000 men, women, and children Marched for Life in the streets of Thrissur in the southern state of Kerala. One attendee had just driven for 18 days across Kerala collecting signatures to present to the Supreme Court to insist that India refuses such barbarity.
The strategy to bring down abortion in India is to bring up the family. The exhibition displayed before the March highlighted the beauty of marriage between one man and one women, taught women how to chart their cycle and understand the beauty of their fertility, educated people on the harms of surrogacy and in vitro fertilization, and provided resources on how to overcome the chains of masturbation and pornography.
Indian people live under a regime that sterilizes women at terrifying numbers. Half of women in India are sterilized by the time they reach 35, and each of these cases is encouraged–or forced–by the government. This is one reason the pro-life exhibition was adamant against contraception of any type. Contraception feeds the lie that Indian lives aren’t worth living. It also doffs its cap to Margaret Sanger, who used India as the first launching ground of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 1952 to control the Indian population.
The abortion industry in India is highly sexist, targeting baby girls above baby boys. The problem has become so extreme that today it is illegal to check the gender of a child before birth. This had led pro-life leaders in India to oppose another industry with eugenic practices: in vitro fertilization.
Robert G. Edwards, the eugenicist who developed IVF, was a prominent leader in the Eugenics Society in Britain in the 1960s and 70s. The industry carries his legacy particularly in India, a top site for international fertility tourism. Across India, couples are illegally bribing doctors to give them a boy after the preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) step of the IVF procedure. The Christian Science Monitor reports, “Abortion of female fetuses – typically after bribing a doctor to determine the sex via ultrasound – remains the most common method of sex selection in India, but using IVF to have a son is increasingly popular.”
READ: ‘Fundamental right to live’: Indian Supreme Court rejects plea for abortion of over 27-week-old baby
Pro-life India’s message for the world is as follows: Every baby, regardless of sex, wealth, or special needs is precious. A boy baby, a rich baby, or a healthy baby has no more right to life than a girl baby, a poor baby, or a sick baby. Families, including large families, are gifts from God.
One of the bishops of the archdiocese of Trichur which hosted the March told me, “We convert the world through births.” The bishops of Trichur personally baptize the fourth and following children of every family, the Catholic schools in the diocese give free education to the fourth and following children of every family, and one of the Catholic hospitals provides free birth care to the fourth and following children of every family. They asked me to share this idea so that the Church around the world will similarly encourage large families.
The pro-life movement in India has sent a clear message this week: It is fighting for every child’s life and soul until abortion is abolished–turning the table on their nation’s pro-abortion and eugenic past.
Rachel Schroder attended the March for Life as a guest from Pro-Life Global where she has led mission trips to equip student-led pregnancy resource and abortion education teams in Latin American schools and universities.
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