From the Latin Abortus, meaning miscarriage. The word means artificial miscarriage, termination of pregnancy, discarding the contents of the womb, expulsion of the fetus, murder of the unborn child up until 28 weeks gestation, i.e. until conditional term of viability outside the mother. After 28 weeks, it means artificial or spontaneous premature birth (partus praematurus). In the case of an artificial "late" abortion, this term is incorrectly used to signify termination of a pregnancy at any stage.
Artifical abortion (abortus artificialis) is differentiated from spontaneous (abortus spontaneus) in that is commences with actions intended by the pregnant woman or other people to terminate the pregnancy. Abortions are likewise divided into those for health reasons and those not for health reasons, which are criminal.
An artificial abortion is seen by all religions of the world as the murder of a child. Pagan society did not consider abortion a crime. "If those who are abiding in married life are about to have a child above a certain number, they ought to hasten to an abortion before the fetus has sensitivity and life" (Aristotle, Politics). But the concept of the sinfulness of abortion was held even in paganism:
One who shows the example of casting off her tender offspring,- Better that she perish in battle herself! If in antiquity mothers had taken pleasure in so acting, The entire human race would have vanished! (.) With a shudder, to strike one's own body with agitated hand? Even in Armenian tigers' lairs they have not done the like; Can a lioness resolve to destroy her own posterity? Women sin in this, though of tender years, - and retaliation awaits them: Often a woman who has slain her offspring dies herself. - Ovid
The Hippocratic Oath, which categorically forbade doctors to do an abortion, reflected the common understanding of the entire medical community of that time and succeeding generations of doctors. This most important and foundational document, the commonly-accepted moral law of medicine, which guided doctors for many centuries, was overturned by the Soviet regime.
The Old Testament does not mention artificial abortion, but there are instructions regarding a willful abortion arising after some crime: "When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine" (Exodus 21:22) In the Bible, although artificial abortion is not directly mentioned, the concept that a person's life begins not at birth but at the moment of conception can be traced.
"Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed from the womb" (Isaiah 44:2). "For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise Thee for I was wonderfully made" (Psalm 138:13-14). "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5). Speaking of John the Baptist, "he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15). "The Lord called me from the womb. And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be His servant" (Isaiah 49:1-5). The Apostle Paul says, "But when God Who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through His grace" (Galatians 1:15). "Did not He who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15). To Isaac is given a name before his conception: "God said [to Abraham]: No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant [that I will be his God and] for his descendants after him." (Exodus 17:19). John the Baptist was given a name before birth (Luke 1:13). At the Annunciation, the angel of the Lord spoke the name of the God-child before His conception by the Holy Spirit: "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus" (Luke 1:31).
The Church has always condemned abortion as murder.
Canon 21 of the Ancyra Council [314-315 AD] : "Regarding women who become pregnant from prostitution and destroy the fruit thereof, and who make it their business to concoct abortives, the former rule barred them for life from communion, and they are left without recourse. But, having found a more philanthropic alternative, we have fixed the penalty at ten years of repentance, in accordance with the established degrees." Canon 91 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council: "Women who furnish drugs for the purpose of procuring abortion, and those who take fetus-killing poisons, are made subject to the penalty prescribed for murderers."
Canon 2 of St. Basil the Great: "A woman who deliberately destroys that which has been conceived in her womb is subject to the penalty for murder. We make no fine distinction between a fetus who has been already formed and one not yet formed. For here the punishment is sought not only in behalf of the one who was to be born, but also for what she brought upon herself: since women very often die from such attempts. With this she is joined in the destruction of the fetus as if a second murder, from those who dare to willfully do this. As for the rest, one ought not extend the period of their repentance until the time of death, but receive them back into the community after ten years; the healing is measured not in the duration of time but in the manner of repentance."
Canon 8 of St. Basil the Great: ".those who provide concoctions to destroy that which has been conceived in the womb are murderers, equally those who provide child-killing poisons."
Trebnik [Church Slavonic "Book of Needs" service book], rite of confession: "Have you worn a potion so as not to create a child, or removed the possibility of conceiving [here the subject is not only abortion but also contraceptive means] or taken a poisonous herb or have been satiated and expelled a child willfully? And when it is done so as to produce nothing and this is expelled willfully, such a person is a destroyer and is condemned as a destroyer. If not of one's will but of some necessity the child is expelled, one is not to receive communion for one year; she who wears a potion, let her be set out and banned for six years, as according to the sixtieth canon of the Council in Trullo . If one wears a poisonous herb or anything which harms her womb so that she can not bear children, she is condemned as a destroyer."
Equally guilty in the murder of the unborn child are doctors, those who perform an artificial abortion and those who assign abortion facilities. The responsibility for the murder of unborn children likewise lies on the husband who does not hinder his wife's obtaining an abortion, and on those who advise an abortion, insist on an abortion, write down directions for an abortion, distribute abortion advertising, campaign for freedom of abortion, or produce and sell abortive means.
From the point of view of contemporary embryological science, human life begins, not at the moment of birth but from the moment of conception, i.e. that instant of the fusion of the nuclei of male and female reproductive cells [3]. At that point a unique genetic code is formed, and as a consequence the embryo is a biologically independent organism, and can in no manner be considered a part of the mother's body, receiving from her only oxygen and nutrition. In later phases of pregnancy, there appear external indications which especially underscore the fact that the embryo is a separate person. Twenty days after conception, the heart begins to beat, and after a month the extremities are formed. The unborn child has electrical activity of the brain and heart, fingerprints, and other indications which are characteristic of an adult and which define personal individuality. The child's blood does not mix with the mother's blood. It has likewise been proven that the unborn child feels pain.
Current church practice does not employ extended penances for the murder of an unborn child. The gravity of this sin does not depend on the term of pregnancy, and is a grave sin against God and human life. In case of spontaneous abortion due to sickness or sinful neglect of the mother (lifting heavy items, running, neglect for the safety of the child) the Holy Church prescribes the reading by the priest of the "Prayer for a woman when she loses a child", which by its essence has a penitential nature.
The reading by the priest of the "Prayer for a woman when she loses a child" is designated only for spontaneous abortion. After an artificial abortion, the reading of this prayer has no church canonical basis whatsoever.
In Christian countries until the 20th century, murder of unborn children was forbidden by law. In Rus', the death penalty for abortion was officially instituted in 1649 in the Code adopted by Tsar Aleksij Mikhailovich (Chapter 22, pg. 26): ®The death penalties for the female gender shall be: for sorcery and murder - decapitation, and for drowning children and other such evil acts - to be buried alive.¯
As an aside, in Rus' until the Bolshevik assumption of power, abortion was an extremely rare event, due to the extremely negative view of it in society. In the criminal code of Russia for 1832, expulsion of a fetus is listed among forms of murder. According to the ®Code of Punishments¯ of 1885, (pp. 1461, 1462) artificial abortion was punished by ®penal servitude for 4 or 5 years, deprivation of all property rights, and exile to Siberia for settlement.¯ The criminal code in 1903 mitigated the measures of punishment: "A mother who is guilty of killing her own offspring shall be punished by confinement in a corrective facility no more then three years, and the doctor from 1.5 to 6 years." Otherwise, abortions were permissible under strict conditions for reasons of preserving life.
From the beginning of the 20th century, there were debates in Russia on the necessity of legalizing abortion. One of the first to express liberal views was Dr. Shabad, basing these on the principles of the Jewish doctor Maimonides. Shabad set forth in the press the question of ®the right of a woman to control her own body¯. In Russia people tried to stop this evil. In 1900 Dr. E. Katunsky wrote: ®The midwife has neither a moral nor a legal right to practice embriotomy (cutting out the embryo) on a living fetus¯. Nevertheless in 1913, the 12th Pirogov Conference took place, condemning the capital punishment of the mother and the doctor for an abortion. Many doctors did not support the decision of this congress. Dr. Lichkus, speaking at the Conference, said: ®Criminal abortion, child-killing, and the use of contraceptive means are symptoms of a sickness in contemporary humanity¯.
Abortion was legalized for the first time in the world during the French Revolution (for a short time in 1791-1810) and in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 (Decree of November 18, 1920). "There shall be free access to an operation for the artificial termination of pregnancy within the setting of a Soviet hospital, where the maximal safety is provided." (Decision of Narkomzdrav [People's Committee for Health] and Narkomyust [People's Committee for Justice]). Hence, Soviet Russia was the first country where abortion was legalized. Terror and slaughter unleashed by the Communists, advocates of abortion, against the faithful and against doctors who opposed abortion made discussion and kind of social protest impossible. Because of the threat of extinction of the country, abortion was forbidden in 1936, but soon (1955) again permitted. After the Russian Revolution, a wave of liberalism swept over the whole world. In the USA appeared the American Birth Control League (ABCL). It was founded by Margaret Sanger. Subsequently, the leaders of fascist Germany, inspired by the ideas of Margaret Sanger on birth control and in direct collaboration with her, initiated the policy of annihilating undesirable races in occupied Slavic territories. They used abortion as a means of influencing fertility. A methodology for this quiet genocide was developed, aided by the distribution and imposition on the population of abortions, contraceptives, sterilization, and pornography. Subsequently, the Birth Control League was renamed to the International Planned Parenthood Federation IPPF). The IPPF has branches in almost every country of the world and uses ideas developed by M. Sanger for methods of genocide and reduction in fertility in developing countries, especially those which are rich in mineral and energy resources. In 1991, the IPPF opened its branch in Russia (RAPS, Rossijskaja Assotsijatsija "Planirovanije Sem'ji") [Russian 'Family Planning' Association], which actively works to influence the demographic policy of the Russian government, uses state funds for its goals, conducts ®sex education¯ in schools, and in fact has lobbied to take over the state program "Sex Education for Russian Students". RAPS, just like the IPPF, actively supports abortion. In early 2000 RAPS had more than 50 branches throughout Russia. In most countries of Europe, abortion was permitted with the participation of the IPPF: Switzerland (1946), Great Britain (1967), USA (1973), France (1979), and other countries. Abortion is forbidden in some countries, especially Islamic and Catholic (Portugal, Ireland, Poland, etc.) It is officially permitted up to 12 weeks in Russia, but the operative so-called "social indicators", introduced by decree of Russian head of state V. S. Chernomyrdin (decree No. 567 of May 8, 1996) make abortion, more precisely artificial premature births, available at any time during the pregnancy. Prior to this, in 1971, the "law of the RSFSR on health" broadened the indicators for abortion. In 1982 ("Instructions on the manner of inducing artificial termination of pregnancy") and in 1988 ("Instructions on the manner of permitting artificial termination of pregnancy using medical indicators"), steps were taken to simplify the abortion procedure and its accessibility. From decree to decree, the indicators for abortion were broadened. Due to the last decree by V. S. Chernomyrdin, a late abortion, more precisely premature birth with murder of the unborn child, became accessible to all and at any stage. During termination of a late-term pregnancy, sometimes children are born who are viable outside their mother's body. They are killed after birth by various means, for example by immersion in a tub of water. This conveyor-belt method of murders in medical institutions leads to an erosion of the concepts of good and evil, both among doctors and among the entire people. There is a liberal movement for freedom of abortion. It uses many slogans and arguments of a propagandistic and demagogic nature: "freedom of choice", "right to choice", "freedom to control one's own body", "the fetus is part of the mother's body", "an unborn child is not human", "and so forth. It is clear that under the guise of the struggle for freedom, many organizations are simply deriving material profit from the industry of murdering unborn children.
Any arguments in favor of abortion are unsustainable either from a religious or a scientific point of view, and have rather an emotional nature. From the Christian point of view, the human soul is joined with the body at the moment of conception, and consequently abortion is murder, no matter at what stage it is performed. Nevertheless, in the church environment there does exist a narrow (for now) stratum of people who holed liberal views pertaining to abortion. Such a tendency shows the moral degradation of society.
The Roman Church, just as the Orthodox, severely condemns abortion. There is an influential and active Catholic movement against abortion, which influences the pro-life movement.
Arguments to the effect that legalizing the termination of pregnancy is necessary to eliminate criminal abortions are not supported by the facts. Criminal abortions continue along with the legal, and the total number of abortions and complications is sharply increasing.
IUDs and hormonal contraceptive tablets employ an abortive effect, where the fertilized egg can not be implanted in the mother's mucous membrane, and perishes.
Many complications of abortion have been observed in 100% of cases and bear an irreversible nature until death: blood infection, peritonitis, blood loss, DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation syndrome), shock, breast cancer, and so forth. The most common complication after artificial abortion is infertility and post-abortion syndrome (PAS), a complex of psychic complications which does not fade with time.
Extended consequences of an abortion include various oncological illnesses, purulent inflammation of the appendages, persistent disruption of the menstrual cycle, inability to carry a child to term (birth of premature children), and many others. Basically due to abortion, about 20-25% of married couples in Russia are infertile. Abortion is especially dangerous for young women who have not given birth. After an abortion, a woman in many cases can not bear healthy children.
Contrary to popular opinion, the frequency of abortion is not associated with economic factors: the link between family material status and number of abortions is not traceable. To the contrary, in poor countries families are larger and richer families strive for fewer children. The offer of concrete material assistance extremely rarely stops a woman going for an abortion. The richest countries of America and Western Europe have a very high level of abortion. Abortion provides fertile ground for the development of criminality (criminalization of society), makes it more brutal, and brings irreversible harm to the health of the population and the moral level. In giving consent to murder, society begins to lose any ethical and moral values. One of the manifestations of the moral degradation of society from abortion is "fetal therapy", i.e. the use of body parts and skin of unborn children for rejuvenation of rich clients and for the cosmetics industry.
One of the problems to which the spread of abortion leads is the destruction of the rights of believers. In medical schools, every student must engage in termination of pregnancy ("Registration book of practical skills for students of the 5th and 6th course", VGMI, 1988). That is, gynecology as a profession is closed to all believing Christians.
The opinion that the use of contraceptives is an alternative to abortion is mistaken and not supported by observations in practice. The advertising of contraception, especially among young people, leads to an increase in the number of abortions. Prevention of abortion in current circumstances will be from widespread church preaching, strengthening of the family, opposition to the so- called "sexual revolution", prohibition of pornography, well-established religious education of youth, publication of literature against abortion, and legislative limitations, as well as the creation of societies of Orthodox doctors at hospitals and medical institutions and in dioceses. Educational groups in parishes which engage in this task have brought credit upon themselves. Abroad, the "pro-life" movement engages in the opposition to abortion, and consists of many organizations. The number of abortions in Russia was 2,469,198 in 1996. Of every three pregnancies, two end with the murder of an unborn child. The Orthodox movement against abortion, "Zhizn'" [Life], has existed since 1993.
Sources: