A child has just been born. The mother and father
look on delightedly. Even the young obstetrician
smiles. The same look of wonder and happiness
lights up all their faces.
Everyone is radiant with happiness.
Everyone except the child.
The child?
You hadn't even noticed the child, had you?

Oh no! This can't be true!
This mask of indescribable agony, these hands
clutching, clinging onto this head, like someone
struck by lightning, shattered, who at any moment
is going to fall to the ground, like a mortally
wounded soldier.

This . . . a birth?
It's a murder.

And in the midst of all this suffering,
the parents . . . in rapture!

But it can't be true!
No! It can't be true!
And yet, it is true.
Yes, this is birth

for the child.

(...)

Isn't it a tragedy?
We should be crying tears of shame, crying for our own
blindness.
The same blindness that made us think women had to
suffer simply because we didn't know any better.
Happily we no longer believe in the old saying:
"In pain shall ye give birth."
Isn't it time to do for the child what we've been
trying to do for the mother?

Fonte: