Dear Editor, too often we read about women who give birth and kill their children, claiming that they were stillborn, and that they did not know they were pregnant. But who believes it? Now another case in Padua. What do you think? I have had three pregnancies and it seems difficult for me not to realize that I am pregnant, not only because of the interruption of the menstrual cycle, but also because of the unequivocal symptoms and evident changes in my body.
Paola Strati
Dear Paola,
I must admit that what happened in Padua horrified me no less than what happened in Traversetolo, where Chiara, a 22-year-old student, gave birth twice, killing and then burying her children in the garden. Even in that case, as you indicate, it seems that no one noticed the pregnancies and not even the person directly involved, i.e. the girl, who gave birth alone in the bathroom at home, while her parents slept upstairs. This is what the girl, who also refuses to speak, told the investigators. Hard to believe, I agree. After all, a pregnancy is not a pimple that can be hidden with a little make-up. Furthermore, the symptoms are important and lead any woman to question the changes both in her body and in her eating behavior that she inevitably experiences when a life dwells and grows within her. But what exactly happened in Padua?
We inform readers. A 29-year-old Italian-Brazilian, Melissa, gave birth in the bathroom of a nightclub dormitory, located in Piove di Sacco. The woman had been working in that nightclub for a few months and also lived there. The young woman gave birth to the little girl directly sitting on the toilet, which makes the facts even sadder and more squalid. And as if that wasn’t enough, she then flushed the toilet, as if a child, a creature, were any waste from our body, causing the newborn baby girl to drown. The 29-year-old, now in custody for aggravated murder, claims she was completely unaware she was expecting a child. These stories also remind me of what was told by Alessia Pifferi, who killed her one and a half year old daughter Diana, causing her to die of hunger and thirst and abandonment. Pifferi also reported that she had given birth to Diana in a bathroom and that she had not been aware of being pregnant. She did not kill Diana immediately, that is, at birth, but after about 18 months and in a no less atrocious, ruthless and terrifying manner. Therefore there are recurring elements that unite cases like these and which can be summarized in the total absence of emotions and feelings towards a living being who is also linked to the executioner by the bond of blood and flesh.
A horrifying coldness that is difficult for us to accept since for us the figure of the mother is an emblem of love, warmth, protection and care. Maternal love represents universal love, the love par excellence, the purest and most powerful that can exist. Instead a mother can kill. A woman can kill, although we attribute the germ of violence exclusively to the male sex. These are women who are absolutely aware of what they are doing, who plan the murderous action and then carry it out, continuing to live as if nothing had happened. That birth in the bathroom is nothing but a small dark parenthesis to be opened and closed forever, archiving facts and images of blood in the depths of the mind. Immediately afterwards you will start living again as if nothing had happened, with two rotting corpses buried under the window of your bedroom, as if you hadn’t just given birth and taken a life from the world.
Let’s get it into our heads that violence is human, it knows no gender. Woman, just like man, can be a victim and can be a perpetrator.
In my opinion, these murderers knew very well that they were pregnant and carried out their pregnancies with the idea of getting rid of their children once they were born.
And they did it without hesitation, without hesitation, without scruples, without regrets. Without batting an eye.
A child in your womb is not a stomach ache and cannot be mistaken for indigestion where you get out of bed to go to the bathroom to do your business, then flushing the toilet.