Teodora Diana Paul: Solidarity for Both – Explained for Everyone / March for Life Bucharest 2026

Teodora Diana Paul, president of Studenți pentru Viață („Students for Life”) Bucharest, Romania, spoke Saturday, March 28, at the March for Life Bucharest 2026:

Good afternoon everyone,

I will begin with the main idea:

A pregnant woman in crisis does not need only the freedom to choose. She needs people to stand BESIDE her.
And when we stand beside her, we also stand beside the child. That is what solidarity for both means.

The word solidarity comes from Latin. Solidus means solid, whole.
In Roman law, in solidum meant that each person was responsible for all, not only for his own part.
Simply put: we do not leave anyone alone.

Here is how a very practical woman — let’s call her Mia — explained to me what solidarity for both means.

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Situation 1

Let’s say Mia is about 40 years old, married, and has three children. She is doing fairly well. She works at least eight hours a day at her job. And at home… who could even count her working hours there?

One day, a young woman called her and said:
“I’m alone. I don’t know what to do.”

Mia had just come home from work. It was 7 p.m. As she was on her way home, her children had already warned her they were starving. On top of that, her husband, who was not at home, had just texted her asking her to send the car insurance on WhatsApp.

What did Mia do? She put the food on the stove to warm up and, at the same time, looked for the insurance to photograph it. But she also stayed on the phone with the young woman who had called her.

The young woman was 20 years old, pregnant, and her boyfriend had just told her he was relocating to the UK — with another woman.

Mia fed her children. Then she started washing the dishes. Meanwhile, she called her gynecologist to schedule an appointment for the young woman who had been left alone. The doctor asked if everything was all right, because it was unusual for Mia to call at that hour.

But when Mia used the words pregnancy crisis, the doctor decided to help the confused young woman. He promised that the next day he would see her at any time and examine her.

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Situation 2

Another evening, Mia was watching a television program about freedom. What a beautiful word!

But do you know what she was thinking? For an entire hour, both the host and the guests had repeated this word dozens of times, yet no one had mentioned the word responsibility.

The program had barely ended when Mia received a message from her office colleague:

“He told me he loves me, but I’m free to have an abortion, otherwise he will leave. I told him we should talk more. And he left!!! What should I do?”

“My dear, is this freedom? Not to care? I’m coming to you. We will talk. First, we get rid of fear. And of loneliness.”

Late at night, when she returned home, Mia wrote in her journal:

“Let us not leave anyone alone. Not the child. Not the mother. We are not truly free when we are alone. So why place them in opposition?
It is natural to build real support for both. To be together, as they already are together. To rejoice. To dream about the future. And for the future to belong to both.
How much of what we call personal decisions actually hides a deep lack of support?”

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I think we understand what Mia is telling us.

For the Romans, in solidum meant that each person was responsible for the whole — not only for his own part, but for everyone. That means the difficulty of a woman in a pregnancy crisis is also ours. The difficulty of the child is also ours.

We do not say: “It’s your choice, deal with it.”
We say: “We are here.” And we truly are.

Because freedom without solidarity leaves a person alone.
Only freedom lived in solidarity becomes love.

When we are in solidarity with the woman, she finds the strength to be in solidarity with the child. That is how we are in solidarity with both.

That is why the real question is not only: “What do you choose?”
But: “Who is beside you when you choose?”

And the answer… can be each one of us.

Let us be so.

Thank you.