It is not surprising to me that these young women from the favelas identify with the plight of fetuses/unborn children threatened by abortion, even as their own desperate circumstances make it feel like their only “choice” sometimes.

Many people around the world who struggle with poverty, discrimination, & violence also have such an identification.

This sense of empathy for the unborn can & often does translate into empathy for women & our nonabortion sexual/reproductive rights, for all others who face injury and annihilation.

It is not always a rightwing sectarian ideology limited to the period of life between conception and birth, but something that arises from experience and a desire for a better world.

I wish our public discourse on sexual/reproductive rights would be more open to such perspectives and their implications.

Many thanks for your comments regarding my work. I’m happy to have been able to share my insights from a wonderful and intense experience.

Kind regards,
Amy

Ladies and gentlemen you’ve never heard of me until today,

Writing this letter desperate to talk to you about my America, so much suffering and so beautiful

I’ll tell you how it seems to be an enchanted place a kind of heaven.

My Latin America is more beautiful than the pictures of Botero.

More sometimes is as sad as the paintings of Frida

It is as intense as the tango

It’s as happy as Brazil,

My Latin America has everything has sea
It has rivers,
There are waterfalls,
It has desert and technology,
There are people happy, people have suffered,
They are communists and capitalists
My beautiful America has Indians of all ethnic groups,
It gypsies, blacks and whites,
It has history, this has been through,
And an uncertain future
It has natural resources,
My America is a poor little rich girl,
My Latin America every day is violated its natural resources comes every day fading into a terrible capacity very fast!

After this confession I think I can perhaps naively call you friends,

More is how we behave in Latin, or rather, most of us like that.

More like not everything is perfect ,….

You know friends I am Brazilian

The Brazil and Latin America has it all I said is a country that looks more like a continent

Why is it you see all races and everything all mixed together, everyone has the blood of Indians,

Many like me have European blood, with African and a fantastic mix of people and religions are many and each day appears once for composing the beauty and diversity of my country,

In my country every day comes a new alien, foreign or new they are welcome …

My country is not as violent as it seems he is more comfortable than you think,

He is so cozy that has a beautiful forest say it is full of enchanted beings who have not even been, discovered more we know that there are

You people who live alone as more than 509 years why our forest is enchanted.

And more than that say that our rainforest is the lungs of the world and be part of our being deserves love and respect

I will ask you friends, and perhaps even for those who do not want to be none, to help us make our Amazon and our people free of any destruction

Caused by foreigners and even ashamed mind of timber, rice,

and all these people here, the son of our land blood of our people, young children of the forest that deplete it,

Destroy our beloved homeland, Brazil!

With love and affection faith that our voice will be heard Denise Gramelick.

Here is a video I posted on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYi0sx-St64

All best,
Amy