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InterNations
Dottoré!

Miscarriage And Motherhood, When Pregnancy Is A Battlefield

"There’s still a pulse," they told me, surprisingly.

Miscarriage And Motherhood, When Pregnancy Is A Battlefield
Mariateresa Fichele

They call it 'recurrent abortion.' Your test shows up positive but then you end up losing the pregnancy in the first few weeks. I've lost count of how many times this happened to me.

I do remember the last time, though. I was eight weeks pregnant. I got up one morning and found myself in the usual pool of blood. I was so used to it that I didn't say anything to anyone. I called a cab and asked the driver to take me to the ER.


The usual routine: There, they give you an ultrasound to determine whether or not a D&C procedure is necessary.

"There’s still a pulse," they told me, surprisingly. “But it will be a long battle.”

Nine months of solitude

Nine long months of rest. Day after day, being alert to every little sign of my body. Constant terror, so all-consuming that you don't even dare think about that child you carry in your belly. You can't cherish the idea of the baby, you can't feel it as being a part of you, because that's the only way you can protect yourself from an eventual loss.

After nine months, the warrior was born.

I stared at him strangely. Is this my son? For nine months I had not allowed myself the chance of loving him.

This kind of fight

For some, becoming a mother, more than a gift, represents the victorious end to a long battle.

I wish success to anyone who is fighting this kind of fight.

Parenthood should be denied to no man, woman, or anyone else who may desire it — for nature may be adverse, but the judgment and prejudice of others should never be.

Learn more about Worldcrunch's exclusive Dottoré! series here.

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Future

AI And War: Inside The Pentagon's $1.8 Billion Bet On Artificial Intelligence

Putting the latest AI breakthroughs at the service of national security raises major practical and ethical questions for the Pentagon.

Photo of a drone on the tarmac during a military exercise near Vícenice, in the Czech Republic

Drone on the tarmac during a military exercise near Vícenice, in the Czech Republic

Sarah Scoles

Number 4 Hamilton Place is a be-columned building in central London, home to the Royal Aeronautical Society and four floors of event space. In May, the early 20th-century Edwardian townhouse hosted a decidedly more modern meeting: Defense officials, contractors, and academics from around the world gathered to discuss the future of military air and space technology.

Things soon went awry. At that conference, Tucker Hamilton, chief of AI test and operations for the United States Air Force, seemed to describe a disturbing simulation in which an AI-enabled drone had been tasked with taking down missile sites. But when a human operator started interfering with that objective, he said, the drone killed its operator, and cut the communications system.

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