Orthodox Church to Russian
gov’t: ‘Abortion must be made equal to murder’
Fri May 19, 2017 - 1:20 pm EST
MOSCOW, Russia, May 19, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — The Russian Orthodox
Church is again calling upon the nation's government to make abortion illegal.
Archimandrite Theothilactes addressed Parliament's
Commission for the Protection of Christian Values at their first session of the
new State Duma. He advised the commission to make an abortion ban the top
legislative priority.
“Abortion must be made equal to
murder," the Patriarch’s representative urged.
"Attention must be paid to this bill and
eventually it must be passed.”
The Commission for the Protection of Christian
Values is a lower house coalition of 46 members of Parliament coming together
to make sure Russian laws conform to Biblical standards of morality and decency.
New laws are proposed and existing laws are evaluated for their impact on
Russian society in terms of Christian values.
In Archimandrite Theothilactes’ address to the
commission, he also criticized a Russian law prohibiting parents from spanking
or physically disciplining their children. He said that law should be
eliminated because it contradicts the Holy Scripture.
“We should not allow any bans on
traditional upbringing in a Christian family, and any attempts to make children
equal to parents," Theothilactes said.
"We need to introduce amendments to this
law."
Abortion was legalized under Communism and became
the standard method of birth control. Russia still has one of the highest rates
of abortion per capita in the world, and most abortions are tax-funded.
With the fall of Communism, the Orthodox Church
gained prominence in society and influence in government. Vladimir Putin has
repeatedly championed laws that reflect Christian values.
In January 2015, Patriarch Kirill addressed the
entire State Duma for the first time, calling for a legislative campaign
against abortion.
Kirill sought to reason with non-Christian members
of Parliament on the basis of Russia's serious dying population. “If we manage to cut the number of abortions by 50 percent,
we would have stable and powerful population growth,” His All-Holiness said.
“The argument that an abortion ban would
cause an increase in the number of underground abortions is pure
nonsense," Kirill added.
"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 Patriarch's stated goal is a total nationwide
ban on abortions, but he urged lawmakers to start by taking abortion coverage
out of the state's obligatory health insurance program. He also urged lawmakers
to favor adoption and discourage surrogacy.
In May 2015, several members of Parliament
responded by banding together to draft a bill limiting state insurance payments
for abortions and banning private abortuaries. Their legislation also
restricted abortifacient contraceptives.
Significantly, members of Parliament also pushed
for a law requiring ultrasounds for all women seeking an abortion. They reasoned
that “according to statistics, up to 80 percent of women change their decision
to abort when they see their child on the screen.”
In 2013, the Russian Parliament passed and Putin
signed a law banning
ads for abortion.
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