About 40,000 people participated in the "Choose Life" rally on May 21, the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica reported.

"We are here to reaffirm the right of children to come into the world. They do not get to ask for it," Father Andres Bonello told Adnkronos, an Italian news agency.

"We do it in a peaceful way, singing and dancing together with many young people," said the Argentine priest who is a member of the Institute of the Incarnate Word.

Participants in the pro-life rally marched from Rome's Piazza della Repubblica to the public square by the St John Lateran Archbasilica.

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