Looking into the eyes of a woman who has decided to have an abortion or who has already had one teaches much more than can hardly be sketched in a few lines, especially if the look is sincere and the listening sympathetic. Such a delicate issue requires a sensitivity that the public expects. The discussion on abortion provides an opportunity for a serene dialogue, without ideological extremism or complicit silences. We can!
As Hillary Clinton said, abortion is a tragedy ("sad, even tragic choice", The New York Times, 2005). A first step is to try to understand what only a woman in this situation feels due to very different circumstances. Let us not judge anyone because, among other things, it can happen to anyone. At the same time, it is not honest to avoid elementary ethical principles. There are good things and bad things, and their goodness or badness is independent of consensus. Tobacco does not kill because the cigarette pack says so; nor is speeding dangerous because the DGT penalizes it; nor is male violence aberrant because the Government condemns it. They are harmful realities in themselves, whoever says so or even if no one says so.

Violence and coercion to prevent a woman from accessing an abortion clinic are just as intolerable as denying her assistance when, faced with an unplanned pregnancy, she decides to have her child and feels alone, suffers from job instability, lack of resources, irresponsibility of the father, is a minor, etc. Along with the anguish prior to the termination of the pregnancy, there is another reality afterwards, generally ignored, regarding the physical and psychological consequences for the woman.

In addition, scientific advances reveal evidence, little known to the general public, of the natural biological process of the pregnant woman's body. Thus, a kind of molecular dialogue from the first moment between the embryo and the woman allows that, despite being something foreign to the mother, the natural defenses are not activated. This immunological tolerance is initiated through a network of substances that release and deactivate all the maternal cells that would generate the natural rejection of the stranger.

Also today we know details of the 1-day embryo. In this sense, it is said that we keep report from our first day (Your destiny, from day one, Nature, 2002). We also know that in the 16-day embryo the nervous system and the cardiac outline begin training , that the embryo's own blood circulation begins on day 20, that the first heartbeat occurs on day 21.... Minor disquisitions aside, what is clear is that there is a life and, of course, it is human.

Thanks to the press, the public knows the fascinating world of the most humane science. The photo of the little hand of little Samuel, 21 weeks pregnant and diagnosed with spina bifida, clutching the finger -precisely the heart- of the surgeon performing the intrauterine operation is memorable. The image went around the world and made people think (Should a Fetus Have Rights? How Science Is Changing the discussion, Newsweek, 2003).

test that "we can" is the endearing scene of watching Izaskun ask a question to our president on TVE. No one is unaware that other human beings diagnosed with Down Syndrome did not have the opportunity to be born. Therefore, it seems reasonable to extend rights to the weakest in order not to discriminate against them and to make equality a rising value, worthy of the human rights of the 21st century. To the tragedy of abortion staff let us not add prison for women. From agreement, but let us anticipate the sad, even tragic choice. Let us go one step further and take it before: to the tragedy of an unwanted pregnancy let us not add the superior tragedy of abortion. This is audacity and hope.

Undoubtedly, we have different points of view, diverse sensibilities and varied personal experiences. This plurality is enriching if we broaden the right to know in order to increase levels of freedom; if we are open to change our opinions and, therefore, progress without going backwards. We can!