Abortions Covered by Russian Mandatory Medical Insurance Greatly Reduced to cases of rape and imprisoned women

Baby in Womb

Source: Pravoslavie

The accepted reasons for carrying out an abortion within the mandatory medical insurance system in Russia have been greatly reduced, a Church representative had the pleasure of announcing at an international legal forum in St. Petersburg today, Interfax-Religion reports.

“Progress has been made,” said Abbess Ksenia (Chernega), abbess of St. Alexis Monastery in Moscow and head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s legal department. “The list of specific indicators for the artificial termination of pregnancy has been significantly reduced. If before, large and low-income families were considered indicators for abortion, then now the indicators are only rape and imprisonment,” Mother Ksenia continued.

However, in her opinion, completely excluding abortion from the mandatory medical insurance system anytime in the foreseeable future will be difficult.

“Achieving complete exclusion of abortion from the system of mandatory medical insurance is not a simple task. Of course that is our goal, but it probably will not be accomplished in one step,” said the abbess.

Abortion must be legally equated to murder, Archimandrite Theophylact (Bezukladnikov) of the New Jerusalem Monastery in the Moscow region told an inter-party State Deputies group for the protection of Christian values on Wednesday. “Abortion must be recognized as murder, because a living being is deprived of life,” the priest said, expressing the unchanging view of the Orthodox Church.

In December 2016, it was reported that an expert working group at the Federal level, headed by Minister Mikhail Abyzov, rejected the initiative, presented in the form of the petition, signed by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and thousands of others, which called for wholly removing abortion from the insurance system, except for medical reasons. Representatives of the Ministry of Health rejected it on the basis of the belief that the implementation of such a proposal would lead to an increase in illegal abortions.

In a January 2015 speech before the State Duma in which he called on Deputies to remove abortion from the insurance system, Patriarch Kirill rejected this reasoning, saying, “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 church leader told the MPs. The patriarch addressed the Duma on the issue of abortion again in January 2017.

At its December 27 meeting at Danilov Monastery, under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church approved the text of a prayer service for forgiveness for the sin of abortion. The “Moleben of Repentance for Forgiveness for the Sin of Killing a Child in the Womb” was sent to the Moscow Patriarchate’s publishing house for inclusion in prayer books.

Comments

  1. One of my favorite parables is the one about two brothers. Jesus tells the story thusly: “A father goes to two brothers asking them to perform a chore. The first says ‘yes, Father’ but after awhile he doesn’t do it. The second say ‘no, Father’ but then repents and does it. Who did the will of the Father?”

    And this brings me to this recent news article which I came across several weeks ago. It pricked my conscience: think of how wonderful it is to actually see a secular state actually do something to reduce the number of abortions. In the West, all we get is excuses. “But this, and that, therefore nothing.”

    Because I am on the right, I am particularly exercised by “conservatives” who lambaste Russia at every turn but always beat their breasts and talk about how “pro-life” they are. Well, here’s your chance folks. See, it can be done. The godless Russkies did it. You can too –if you’re serious.

    For too long in America we have viewed ourselves as the First Brother, the chosen one, who because of “muh democracy” or whatever was the golden child. The Russians on the other hand were the ne’er-do-well younger brother, who was necessarily inferior and less moral. Yet in the instance of baby-killing, which brother did the will of the Father?

  2. Admittedly it is difficult to get people to wake up due to the overwhelming context of the Western Liberal lifestyle that has been adopted throughout the industrially/technologically developed world. You have to trace it to patterns of behavior over the life of persons, specifically, female persons.

    So long as women compete with men in the workforce for jobs, children will be seen as a burden due to limited resources. That is to say, so long as social feminism in the manifestation of women working significantly outside the role of childbearer/childrearer/housekeeper in the husband’s home persists, children will be seen as a retarding influence on this endeavor as well as an expensive indulgence – sort of a costly human “pet” that has to be kenneled/groomed/schooled for 18 years minimum.

    This is a truly unnatural, twisted state of existence but the brainwashing of the previously Christian populaces in the West to embrace this lifestyle [unknown in human world history until about three generations ago] has had a devastating effect on birthrates, morality and the family in general.

    In short, feminism is an evil, genocidal borg.

    Restoration and a re-embrace of the patriarchy is the only sane way forward but it will be extremely difficult given the level of brainwashing that has been accomplished in the dominant culture since WWII. It is Orwellian and staggering in its prevalence and effects and a thoroughly de-Christianizing metamorphosis of the highest order.

    What has been done to men and children in the name of female liberty in the last few generations has so disfigured the Western psyche that we suffer from a severe disconnect and alienation from all generations previous to its arrival on the psychological scene. It takes nothing less than a sincere rethinking of morality based solely on the witness of the Church Fathers and the observation of nature outside of our peculiar society to shake off the mind-bending moral travesty of the modern Western Liberal phronema.

    However, once the spell is broken, matters become clear and we can see how utterly unstable the house of cards is.

    What will happen is men will change.

    The repression of alpha manhood will reach its natural threshold where hormones and genetic programming simply refuse to give any further and bounce back with a fierce vengeance unseen in world history.

    We should pray that it does not happen as a katharsis but as a managed walk back of feminism by the powers that be toward a patriarchal model. If it breaks fully as a katharsis, it will be very, very difficult to control.

    • Tim R. Mortiss says

      Can’t think of anyplace else to put it, but taking a point of personal privilege I’m glad to say that two weeks ago my wife and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. We were married at 19, in the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, we live just a few city blocks from that church building. A fine bash was put on by our children and their spouses.
      It requires sacrifices in the contemporary world for the wife to stay home while the children are there. Mine did this, as have our married daughters and our daughter-in-law. It can still be done.

      • George Michalopulos says

        God bless you and your wife Tim! What a sterling witness. How stark the contrast with the spirit of the times. I hope to meet you someday.

        • Tim R. Mortiss says

          Thanks, George. Likewise.

          • Estonian Slovak says

            Let me join George in offering congratulations! If you are so politically incorrect as to be married to the same woman for 50 years, you’re my kind of guy! Many more years!

      • Michael Bauman says

        Timor, mazel tov!

  3. Michael Bauman says

    Here in Kansas there was incremental change on abortion that could have been achieved but the most vociferous “pro-life” group refused any incremental change. All or nothing was their “righteous” attitude.

    The nihilists are masters of the incremental approach.

    • Yup. This is why they now attack contraception. Shameful approach. A beautiful, eloquent statement is yours.

    • Michael,

      We need to remind these righteous “all-or-nothing” pro-lifers that even God (who is presumably their God as well) takes an incremental approach with us. He does so with each of us, correcting only what we can bear at any moment; and he did so culturally with all of humanity over many centuries. We might ask them, among any number of other examples, how it is that David, a man after God’s own heart, was considered righteous and chosen of God while having multiple wives.

      • Michael Bauman says

        Brian, I am not sure who they worship but their tendancy is to know who is going to hell and who isn’t.

      • Fr Chris Moody says

        It seems fair to say you mis take Gods economia for tolerance and approval. He is absolutely not incremental when it comes to the commandments. David’s example left him bereft essentially of Gods blessing. Hardly a good example to cite. The cries from the slaughter of an innocent goes right to the Lord’s ear. As far as God allowing multiple wives, the scripture says Moses allowed it because of the hardness of heart, but it was not God’s intent. There is no need to pejoratively insult the ‘righteous’ pro lifers. i guess we should stop commemorating the slaughter of the innocents every. It is so right wing after all.

        • Fr. Chris,

          You misunderstood. Perhaps in my desire for brevity I wrote poorly. Although I do not consider myself ‘righteous,’ I am thoroughly pro-life and rarely criticize those who are, to which anyone who has been on this site for years can attest. It is not fair to say that I confuse God’s economia for tolerance and approval. I certainly do not.

          You are absolutely correct that Moses allowed it because of their hardness of heart, but that it was not God’s intent. Nevertheless, it was allowed; and, in God’s dispensation for that time, it neither excluded one from the people of God nor prompted the withdrawal of His Holy Spirit from His anointed one.

          I think we can agree that the softening of hearts often takes time. It does with me, anyway; and I continue to be grateful that our Lord has never taken an “all or nothing” approach to my salvation. “Repent now – of everything – or else…” No, He has shown me this, then that, and then gradually more and more things in my life that are in need of repentance…slowly, patiently transfiguring me (hopefully) from glory to glory. And He acted similarly in the case of His people, Israel. If the word ‘incremental’ doesn’t fit this process I would gladly accept suggestions for language that does.

          I would ask you or anyone else to remember that civil law (and that is what Michael Bauman and I were referring to) does not address the illumined who already know to do the good. It addresses the unillumined, primarily for the purpose of restraining evil and secondarily for pedagogical purposes – which is to say that even those who are forced into refraining from evil and doing good against their will often discover to their surprise that the fruits of righteousness are sweet and are glad, in retrospect, that they were restrained from doing what they would otherwise have done.

          Some pro-lifers, however, insist that if by means of civil law they cannot save all, they will as a matter of ‘principal’ choose rather to save none. I do not in any way criticize the principal. What Michael Bauman and I criticize is the tactics. “All or nothing” pro-lifers confuse war with a single battle. The goal is, and must always be, to win the war; but war always consists of many battles. Today’s achievable objective may be, as it were, the liberation of a single strategic town. We neither stop fighting upon the liberation of the town nor refuse to fight the battle for those in that single town because we are not yet able to liberate the entire country.

          Refusing to save some because we cannot yet save all puts ‘principal’ over persons. It too easily becomes an impersonal ideology with the appearance, but not the reality, of love. I dare say you wouldn’t take this approach when it comes to evangelism, nor would anyone who works in a crisis pregnancy center. Why, then, should it be insisted upon in the case of working (and never ceasing to work) toward achievable civil laws that are increasingly more just?

  4. As long as contraception is funded-even a liberal is good with it.

    Strip away contraception as desired by some on the right and everything will go underground or next door.

  5. I really do not want to see this Sodom and Gomorrah people of the USA picking a war with Russia. Although, totalitarian in it’s state leadership. it is, due to both church and state, the only civilized nation in the world. Still, the Jesuits and Rothchilds are as hell bent on it’s destruction as they were in 1917. The principle bone of contention between the USA is the rabid desire to gain access to the fabled SWEET CRUDE which is lockaderumored to exist on the arctic and in the waters of the Harptic sea. They are smugly renaming the arctic, in honor of HARP which causes the global warming to melt the ice. As they always have done, they care not for any damage they do in the process elsewhere in the world. Still, the Orthodox of Russia are becoming a shinning candle of the Light of Jesus Christ.God Bless them. Baby John Doe, Marshall given command on the 1st National Day of Rescue, ( anti-abortion non ,violent civil disobedience blockade).1989 Oct 29, Sunnyvale Calf. I would have rather done this then been the 1st man on the moon, which is still open, by the way.

  6. Mark E. Fisus says

    … the petition … called for wholly removing abortion from the insurance system, except for medical reasons. Representatives of the Ministry of Health rejected it on the basis of the belief that the implementation of such a proposal would lead to an increase in illegal abortions.

    And leaving in a rape exception would simply incentivize false allegations of rape in order to obtain abortions. If they intend to leave in place a rape exception, it should be accompanied by a statute of limitations for filing a report of a rape. It has to be within a few days after it occurred, and not after finding out weeks later you’re pregnant and want an excuse to abort.

  7. http://orthochristian.com/104107.html

    ” Perhaps many will consider my words harsh and provocative. Indeed, this is what I wanted: It is a provocation to the hardness of heart of all those responsible for the modern genocide of abortion. I want to protect the children who cry unceasingly, because they have no eyes to see or a mouth to smile. They were destroyed by doctors at the request of their own parents.”

    – Metropolitan Paul of Sisanion and Siatista

  8. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40245152

    NGO’s active again in Russia, Navalny, et al.

    Just as a new wave comes at Trump with Maryland and DC filing lawsuits alleging unconstitutional business activity:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/us/trump-lawsuit-private-businesses.html

    The devil is indeed busy this Apostle’s Fast.

    For those of you who need a compass or program or something, the good guys are the Orthodox Christians and other Christians obedient to Christ’s moral laws and the patriarchy. The bad guys are the a) (Commie) Feminist-Perverts aka FemPervs or “vampires”, if you will, those who inhabit the ideological left and center in America and Western Europe, and b) the international ideological association known as the Islamic ummah (or community).

    Or, in brief, vampires and Muslims.

    Good hunting.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/national-govt–politics/under-trump-militias-not-ready-lay-down-arms/iNhNZaQ18gtY1L5Al3ck7O/