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SOURCE: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/in-first-ever-speech-to-duma-russian-patriarch-calls-for-total-abortion-ban
Mon Jan 26, 2015 - 2:42 pm EST
In first-ever speech to
Duma, Russian patriarch calls for total abortion ban
Thaddeus
Baklinski
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Russian Patriarch Kirill
holds a vigil "in defense of the faith" in Moscow on April 22, 2012. Nickolay Vinokurov / shutterstock.com
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MOSCOW,
January 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In
the first-ever speech by a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Duma,
Patriarch Kirill has called on the Russian government to build on its support
for the family and traditional marriage by defunding abortion in the country,
with the objective of eliminating the killing of pre-born children altogether.
“If we manage to cut the number of abortions by 50 percent we would
have stable and powerful population growth,” said the patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
“The argument that a ban would cause an increase in the number of
underground abortions is pure nonsense. People have to pay money for these
operations and our task is to make the price of a legal infanticide the same as
of the illegal one. Taxpayers must not pay for this,” the Orthodox Church leader told the
MPs.
Patriarch
Kirill said that while the solution to Russia's impending demographic disaster
is complex, the most pressing need is, apart from banning or at least
restricting abortion, for the state to help young couples regain the confidence
they need to want to have children by providing material support, and by giving
doctors additional incentive to care about the life of “conceived
children" by introducing pro-life ethical norms in the medical
professions.
The
Russian patriarch also condemned the practice of surrogacy in his parliamentary
address, urging lawmakers to take steps to completely replace it with adoption.
Momentum
to eliminate abortion in Russia has been building for several years, with both
religious and political leaders calling for legislative changes to defend life
from conception.
Last
August, the abbot of Vatopedi Monastery, Archimandrite Ephraim, said Orthodox
Christians should actively strive for a ban on abortions.
“It is unacceptable that such terrible crimes as abortions are
committed in Orthodox countries, moreover, in such large quantities! This
phenomenon must make us think seriously about it; I would say, we must be
shocked and distressed, we need to raise the alarm,” the Archimandrite wrote in an address
to participants of the international pro-life conference with the title “Large
Families and the Future of Humanity” that took place in Moscow last year.
In
2013, the Russian Federation enacted a law banning abortion advertising in an
effort to stem the country's decline in population.
The
head of the State Duma Committee for Family and Children, MP Elena Mizulina,
said the Russian people must stop tolerating abortion and the recent rise in
surrogacy because they threaten to “wipe out the population of Russia.”
“The
problems of abortion prevention and the shift in public opinion towards
abortion are currently very urgent. Although the number of abortions in Russia
is falling, it still exceeds 5 million every year,” Mizulina said.
She
added that though the practice of surrogacy was relatively new in Russia, the
societal implications are of great concern to her.
“We still can stop the consequences of this practice from
happening. It can and must be used only in exceptional cases,” Mizulina explained.
“Humanity will probably understand one day that as we ban
nuclear weapons to prevent the death of Mother Earth, so should we ban the
technology destroying the natural environment and natural childbirth, the
natural way of human reproduction,”
the MP said.
Patriarch
Kirill has offered Russian authorities suggestions on how to reduce the
nation’s staggeringly high abortion rate.
On
the website of the Moscow Patriarchate, Patriarch Kirill has proposed a series
of measures, including asking that the Ministry of Health and Social
Development make “preservation of pregnancy a priority task for the doctor” and
ban “medical initiatives on its interruption.”
He
urges the state to end health insurance coverage of abortion except in cases of
direct threat to mother’s life, and to institute a compulsory two-week waiting
period after an “informed consent” form is signed by the mother, before an
abortion can be performed. The Patriarch observed that, “this period exists in
developed countries.”
Kirill
also suggested the establishment of crisis pregnancy
centers in every maternity hospital, with trained professionals on hand to help
“lonely mothers in difficult life situations."
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