Abortion

[NadirGP]

Abortion

Some time ago, some people argued with me saying, although abortion is bad, in any case of a rape, abortion is supposed to be allowed. What is the position of the Orthodox Church on this matter?

[Priest Antonios]

Abortion is murder.

-Antonios

PS - I just assumed I would not have to include quotes to back it up.

[Lydia]

Yes, abortion is murder and is forbidden for any reason.
That being said, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has come out in favour of abortion in certain circumstances.
If a woman has had an abortion and repents, she is to be treated with compassion and gentleness. But I think the canons prescribe a long period of separation from the Holy Mysteries.

[Maria]

Yes, abortion is murder and is forbidden for any reason.
That being said, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has come out in favour of abortion in certain circumstances.
If a woman has had an abortion and repents, she is to be treated with compassion and gentleness. But I think the canons prescribe a long period of separation from the Holy Mysteries.

The current EP is an ecumenist. He is certainly not infallible nor does he follow the canons of the Holy Orthodox Church.

[NadirGP]

Antonios, Lydia and Maria,
Thank you for answering my question.
Nadir

[Barbara]

Speaking of the repenting women who have gone through that awful thing,
I remember reading a first person account of the emotions one Orthodox woman went through.
Maybe in Orthodox America, the newspaper, this was ?

To avoid such suffering from this bad deed, I hope that True Orthodox Churches will remind
parishioners regularly about what a tragedy that would be and to make sure to never even consider it for a moment.

Without these reminders, some parishioners will possibly be influenced by their worldly surroundings and "friends". They
might succumb. Ready advice from priests will halt such a disaster.

[joasia]

It's most detestable because the soul is created at the time of conception.

What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? . . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it" (177 AD Athenagoras A Plea for the Christians 35, Embassy chap. 5).

Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not" (374 AD Basil the Great - First Canonical Letter, canon 2).

He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it die upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees" (374 AD Basil the Great First Canonical Letter, canon 8.

Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees" (314 AD Council of Ancyra canon 21).

I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (396 AD Jerome Letters 22:13).

Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? -- where there are many efforts at abortion? -- where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine" (391 AD John Chrysostom Homilies on Romans 24).