Leire's story is moving. She does not want to be the protagonist of anything, but this Sunday she will be one of the testimonies at the rally of Every Life Mattersat 12:00 noon, at the Puerta de Alcalá (Madrid). The platform, together with the attendees, will demonstrate against the lack of public aid to maternity, the Euthanasia law, the unborn, the attack on the conscientious objection of doctors, and the reform of the Penal Code against the freedom of expression of pro-lifers.
"We are morally obligated. If we don't talk now, when? If we don't do it ourselves, who?" said the president of the Spanish Family Forum, Ignacio García JuliáThe event took place at a press conference held this week by the platform Every Life Matters. In it, the organizers (Foro Español de la Familia, Fundación +Vida, Provida España and Fundación Más futuro - Rescatadores Juan Pablo II) have offered details of this Sunday's rally, along with a video that you can watch here.
"Our experience is that no one is indifferent when this subject is discussed. It is important to show the truth, because the truth and the good in itself, have an impressive value. The culture of life is very strong, this is unstoppable," he said. Alicia LatorrePresident of the Spanish Federation of Pro-Life Associations in Spain.
"In the event, the protagonists will be the women, the sick and the doctors. Why not let the women who have had abortions speak? We want society to see that these new laws, reforms, laziness and attacks are harming our families," she said. Marta Velardepresident of More Future- John Paul II Rescuers.
Among the adhering associations are the following: Assembly for Life, Liberty and Dignity, European Federation One of Us, Association for the Defense of the Right to Conscientious Objection (ANDOC), Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, Catholic Association of Propagandists (ACdP), Association in Defense of Human Life (ADEVIDA), Association of Researchers and Professionals for Life (CÍVICA), Educatio Servanda Foundation, 40 days for Life, Spanish Association of Catholic Pharmacists, Fundación Villacisneros, AESVIDA, Fundación Valores y Sociedad, Asociación Deportistas por la Vida y la Familia, E- Cristian, Cristianos en Democracia, Asociación de Ayuda a la Madre y al Bebé (AMABE), AYUVI, Asociación Voz Postaborto, Plataforma por la Familia Catalunya-ONU, Asociación Cinemanet , Associació Catalana d'Estudis Bioètics (ACEB), ANDEVI y PROVIDA Alicante, Alcalá de H., Badajoz, Barcelona, Bilbao, Castellón, Gijón, Santander, Valencia, Valladolid, Zaragoza, Guadix, Sevilla, Torrejón de Ardoz.
Leire speaks: making post-abortion trauma visible
Leire Navaridas, communication and marketing consultant, will be at the Puerta de Alcalá rally. The young woman describes herself on social networks as "mother of 3, only 1 alive that gives me the strength to fight for the defense of love, truth, life and the union between woman and man. Victim of the IVE".
In conversation with Omnes last Tuesday, in addition to telling her story, she brought out the best in herself by talking about motherhood, "the greatest gift in the world." Then we see it. And 48 hours ago, she wrote on LinkedIn: "From my experience, not only as a victim, but also as a companion to other women, I know how important and necessary it is, today more than ever, to make post-#abortion pain visible (not easy, by the way, because it is traumatic). This Sunday I will be there, as always available to go anywhere that allows me to dismantle the lies surrounding #IVE, to highlight the consequences of the loss of a son or daughter, and to share the experience of saving the #maternity and with it the #happiness".
Lies surrounding abortion
From now on, it is the Leire who continues her story. "In 2009, in Donosti, I let myself be violently intervened in my pregnancy. I say this very consciously. Because the word IVE is used, which they say means Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, but I not only do not agree with it, but I completely reject it because it contains a very big lie, well two: one, the idea of "interruption" as if it could somehow be resumed. And second, and more importantly, the "voluntary" thing. And this is fundamental and critical for the women who go through it, because for it to be "voluntary", they would have to give us: first, all the information, then awareness, and third, alternatives". "And the IVE I was telling you about before, I call it Violent Pregnancy Intervention, and for me that is the acronym IVE. I always refer to it with those terms".
"They did not even show me that what I was carrying in my womb was the life of my son, who already had his little heart and his "everything", much less did they tell me what I was going to go through, because when you are subjected to a violent action, which is the case, trauma sets in. It is impossible for violence not to have traumatic consequences and thirdly, I was not given any other alternative. Then, with the idea that if I continued with that, I would have mental problems, they denied me that doing so would not cause them. It is an unbelievable trap", she assures.
I call the IVE a Violent Pregnancy Intervention.
Leire
Abortion in 2009: absolute loneliness
"My case of miscarriage was one of the most typical ones," Leire recalls. "It's when you get pregnant and you say 'it doesn't suit me': because it wasn't in my plans, because I still have an idea of professional development that hasn't materialized yet, and sometimes because we're not in good terms as a couple. This happened to me when I was in Macau, which is an island next to Hong Kong," the young woman tells Omnes. "We were living with my partner and I in Australia, and we had decided to come to live in Spain, for which we got married there in Australia, but he got a job, I went with him, but we were in a tremendous crisis, and the mistake was to have sex in a crisis, but it happened and as a result of that came my first pregnancy".
"I was totally unprepared, in a state of shock, and above all, and this is very relevant, with an absolute sense of loneliness in the face of the problem. So what did I do? I was in Macao, which is the cradle of perversion, of gambling and a very sordid world. A very sick world. It's like a mini Chinese island, a replica of Las Vegas, and that's where all the gamblers come from the mainland to spend their savings, ruin their families, smoke and drink as much as they can and then go home a mess. The situation is that I got pregnant, I lived it as a brown and knowing that for that I was alone, I had the feeling that I didn't count neither with my husband, nor with my family, nor anything", the young woman openly admits.
"So what do I do with that? Well, I happen to call a friend in Donosti who is very closely related to a man I also knew who has an abortion clinic. Well, it's a gynecology clinic, but I knew they performed abortions. At that time, I could have gone to a pro-abortion demonstration under the slogan "We give birth, we decide". And since what we have inside us seems to be nothing more than a jumble of cells, which has no other value, it can be removed like a cyst or a wart.
"I took that on as the viable solution to resolve my situation, and also with the idea that it was going to be harmless and that it was going to return me to the situation before I was pregnant, without any consequences or any more stories," Leire reveals. "I went back to Donosti, I tell my parents. It was 2009. My mother accompanies me, pays for the intervention, I sign that I do it, because it is supposedly going to cause me psychological problems, and there, like someone who is going to have a waxing, I let my pregnancy be violently intervened".
Pregnancy in 2010: "start building".
Leire had been having vertigo since college, and already in Madrid, she decided to go to a therapist who recommended her. The first thing she understands is that "I feel more alone than one, which in fact is the origin of the dizziness, and that treated that, they disappeared". At the second session with him, "I was already pregnant again in 2010, and somehow I experienced it again as unwanted news, let's say bad news. What I did know was that I could not go through the same thing again," she reveals, "but not because I was aware of what I had gone through, but because of an idea I had that if I went through it again, my reproductive system would be destroyed and somehow I would not be able to be a mother again.
I saw that I had an alternative, which was to build, and being aware that what was inside was the life of my daughter or son.
Leire
"I had the illusion of being a mother, then I saw that it was not possible. But at the same time I had no way out, no options. And then I called the therapist who told me: 'don't worry, come here, don't do anything'. It was my partner and I, and I only remember one sentence that worked magic. He told me: 'Leire, stop destroying and start building'.
With that phrase, I could understand the drift of destruction that I had in my life, because I consumed everything: drugs, sex, relationships... and when I was not hurting, I let them hurt me and so a constant dynamic. But I saw that I had an alternative, which was to build, and being aware that what was inside was the life of my daughter or son, I suddenly connected all the illusion for what was going to happen: I loved the idea of being able to read beautiful stories to be able to tell them to him, learn songs...
Suddenly, a halo of light and hope opened up for me and life was wonderful. I had a lot of joy and enthusiasm for life. The bad working conditions I was in seemed irrelevant to me, I was ready to do anything so that my son would have everything. I remember the first ultrasound, hearing his heart, crying with emotion, everything was very beautiful and very exciting, except that at a check-up at 3 months, the gynecologist told me that the heart was no longer beating and that my son was no longer alive".
"Everything was a very hard blow again", reveals the young woman from San Sebastian. Cold as a stone, I said to myself: 'it was nice while it lasted', I didn't shed a tear and this was never spoken of again, neither in my partner, nor in my family, nor in the whole world that knew I was pregnant, this loss faded away again, it was erased from the map of the face of the earth and we moved on".
"Pain, a terrible catharsis".
It went on like that for a couple more years, she continues. "I had gone through the abortion, I had gone through this miscarriage and somehow, moving forward without any kind of mourning and awareness of loss. And after all this, the couple broke up, but I continued on a path of personal development, thanks to the therapist, where I got to know myself better and was peeling back layers, until I reached that layer where all the immense pain that I carried inside came out, and it was also very graphic, because the pain came out of my belly and I couldn't stop crying and crying, like a terrible catharsis.
But it was very nice, because let's say that the love I felt for those children, for my children, came out. Then I was able to reestablish my love relationship with them, I was able to see that after all that pain, there was the love I have as a mother and a new door was opened as well. I felt very guilty because I was already very aware of what had happened, I was very aware that I had lost my children and I felt very guilty about it.
I have offered myself as a testimonial to dismantle all these lies and to try to prevent other women from making the same mistake.
Leire
"Second chance: I get to forgive myself"
"Then comes the guilt, you can't forgive yourself, you think you are the worst, that you are a heartless, cruel woman, that you don't deserve anything and somehow, I was looking for punishment. And I started to have relationships with men, which was basically so that they would finish destroying me completely. But well, thanks to the fact that I am still in that therapeutic environment, I am keeping a little bit the conscience that this is a very bad path, and also thanks to my current partner who encourages me and encourages me to give myself a second chance".
"It was when I finally managed to forgive myself, also thanks to understanding, which was very hard for me to accept, thanks to assuming that I had been a victim of a system that promotes violence in such a hidden and sibylline way. Because a priori [abortion] is a right and a solution, and very far from that, it basically destroys you and has the potential to end your life; well, that's when I became a little indignant with the idea of how a woman has to end up going through something like that for lack of social support, and because of such an unsocial deception that I had believed, because I was a feminist, pro-abortionist and all; and then, when you practice it you see that it destroys you, apart from the fact that you cannot recover the life of your lost children".
"And Lander arrived."
"But Lander arrived," we commented. "Yes, it's the happy ending. When I give myself a new opportunity to return to life, to return to love, not only do I fall in love with my partner, but he gives me Lander, which is the most wonderful thing in the world. Motherhood is the greatest gift in the world, or if not I would say the most, because what I experience with Lander is that it is almost difficult for me to explain it".
"Lander was born in December 2017," Leire specifies. "I was at the 8-M demonstration in 2018, with Lander already a baby of a few months in his little backpack attached to me, and of course, when I see that the claims many are based on promoting abortion, I was so indignant, I refuse. And then I started to raise my voice: I have offered myself as a testimony to dismantle all those lies and to try to prevent other women from making the same mistake I did, because the women who are promoting those posters promoting free abortion, free and super accessible, are not aware of what destroys women".
"In fact, since my testimony reaches many women, many others contact me, because they finally understand that someone will understand them, they know that I can understand them, that I have gone through the same thing, that it is possible to return to life. Many have had several suicide attempts, and those who have not because they already had living children, but there is no way out for what they have done and many cases of women that I have accompanied are terrible".
It has happened to me with women I have accompanied and there has also come a time when they have told me: "this is it". In the end, the key is love.
Leire
"Motherhood, a lot of love."
The last part of the conversation is about motherhood. It is almost impossible to stop Leire. Her arguments come pouring out. "Motherhood, far from destroying your life, is an opportunity where you will receive a lot of pure love, because babies are like that, and you will have the opportunity, thanks to that inspiration, also to transcend any kind of problem, any difficulty, in which you could even be blocked throughout your life. So, for love of them, a woman is capable of doing anything. So, far from tearing you apart and subjugating you or depriving you of anything, on the contrary".
"For me, motherhood is already a reality, let's say, because I have been a mother since the first day, but when Lander came, what I can say is that I am a woman with many resources, which gives me an incredible power to overcome everything and to achieve everything, and also a joy and a love that I feel, and an illusion to be with him every day, that has no comparison with anything I have ever experienced in my life".
In addition, thanks to the awareness of how vulnerable and how valuable life is, Lander is a super respected, super loved child, and everything that his older siblings have not been able to take, he is taking with him, he is a happy child. And for me, bringing happy children into the world, I think it is not only a beautiful act, but also a very necessary one, given the state of society.
"It has happened to me with women I have accompanied and there has also come a time when they have told me: "this is it". In the end, the key is love. The lack of love destroys a lot and what saves is love," concludes Leire.
