(Photo: Sipa via AP Images)Andrea Bocelli on stage at the World Music Awards, held at the Sporting Club. Monte Carlo, May 2010.
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A short video clip featuring renowned Italian singer Andrea Bocelli testifying how he could have been aborted has garnered wide attention.
The video was made over a year ago but was only recently circulated on various websites, including iamwholelife.com. It has received more than 143,000 views on Youtube since it was posted early this month.
Bocelli, who is blind, didn't expect the fuss over his testimony but voiced his pro-life stance clearly in a recent interview with Italian newspaper Il Foglio, as reported by LifeSiteNews.com.
"Because of my personal convictions as a devout Catholic, I am not only fighting against something, I am fighting for something – and I am for life," the world-famous tenor said.
In the video, Bocelli does not make arguments defending the dignity of human persons in the womb, but rather tells a short story of how he came to be.
His mother, he recounted, was hospitalized while pregnant for what was thought to be a simple attack of appendicitis. The doctors applied some ice on her stomach and after the treatments were complete, they advised the mother to abort the child.
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"They told her it was the best solution because the baby would be born with some disability," Bocelli explained in the video, which was translated for English-speaking viewers.
But his mother decided not to abort the child and Andrea was born on Sept. 22, 1958.
"Maybe I'm [biased] but I can say that it was the right choice," he said.
Bocelli explained to Il Foglio that he recorded the video at the request of his friend, Father Richard Frechette, a missionary who works with children in Haiti, to raise funds for a new home, as reported by LifeSiteNews.com. He was asked to provide hope to struggling mothers.
"I hope this could encourage many mothers that sometimes find themselves in difficult situations – in those moments when life is complicated but want to save the life of their baby," he said in the video.
Earlier this year, a U.S. celebrity had a similar story to tell.
Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy-winner and the new Denver Broncos quarterback, was in his mother's womb when doctors told her to abort him. It was a high-risk pregnancy for Pam, who was 37 years old at the time, and an abortion would save her life, doctors advised. But trusting in the Lord, she continued with the pregnancy. Today, Tebow is a famed football player and an outspoken evangelical.
Tebow's story was aired during the 2010 Super Bowl in February and is featured on the Focus on the Family website.
Meanwhile, iamwholelife.com has testimonies from a number of foreign celebrities, including Mexican actor Eduardo Verastegui who starred in the movie Bella.
