Abortion as a form of genocide – 1
25 August 2014
We live at a time when people are becoming increasingly vindictive. Their morals are deteriorating and their minds are darkened. The absurdity that people are experiencing today is obvious and undeniable. We’re living in a time prophesied by Anthony the Great when people who are mad appear to be rational and those who are rational are deemed mad. It may be claimed that in older times, too, there was rampant sinfulness, but we ought to note that there was never this offensive legitimation and widespread social acceptance of sin. In our time, abortions, adultery and homosexuality have all been made legal, though this would have been inconceivable until the middle of the 20th century. It’s a cause of astonishment, if nothing else, that today sin is projected not simply as legitimate, but as an ideal way of life.
Today the family is undergoing a great crisis throughout the world. The eternal enemy of humankind knows very well that if he strikes at the core of society, which is the family, he’ll achieve his goal. He’s created conditions such that young people avoid or delay getting married, and naturally with no thought to what should go without saying- chastity and a life in Christ. They don’t have a Church wedding, which is the only valid and blessed marriage in the sight of God. They have a civil wedding or that modern, demonic agreement to live together, by which even homosexuals can marry.
And even in existing families he’s created temptations out of nothing, so that divorce presents itself very easily as the ideal solution! The statistics from dioceses in the Church of Greece, indicate that in any year there are more divorces than weddings.
So when people today are faced with an unwanted pregnancy, they think that an abortion’s perfectly natural. It’s been accepted under the term ‘artificial termination of pregnancy’. As if it’s so easy, like pressing a switch and turning off the electricity. The people who have abortions have no sense that they’re committing a crime, a great sin, which is what murder is. From the moment of conception, that is when the egg’s fertilized, we have an embryo which is also a person, a psycho-somatic entity which grows for nine months in its mother’s womb until it sees the light of life at its birth. At no point in the progress of the embryo in its mother’s womb, even in the first twelve weeks, can we cut off its life. If we do, it’s murder.
It’s not only the mother who’s responsible for the abortion-cum-murder; if the father consents to this violent and outrageous action, he also bears responsibility. They both kill their unborn children. Just because they don’t allow them to be born doesn’t mean that they aren’t their children. And any doctor who undertakes an abortion also has a great deal of responsibility. These doctors shouldn’t be looking at their profession- which isn’t so much a profession, but more of a calling- from a financial point of view, but should also see it in moral and spiritual terms. We know lots of gynaecologists and surgeons who’ve never carried out an abortion. They can invoke personal reasons of conscience and avoid the operation. In fact, in a number of cases, after a polite and loving discussion they’ve had with the person who was about to have an abortion, they’ve managed to have the operation cancelled and have persuaded the mother to accept the pregnancy.
This sin of abortion/murder is a burden on the mother’s conscience for the rest of her life. When I hear the confession of many women who’ve fallen into this sin, I see the guilt, the regrets, even if they’ve had confession. And often enough, a woman doesn’t stop at one abortion, they sometimes reach double figures. It needs profound repentance, effort and works of repentance to expunge the consequences of this sin. Of course, with confession, the sin is forgiven but the consequences persist. You have to put in the corresponding pain, through repentance, by careful observance of God’s commandments, if your soul’s going to regain its peace and its serenity. God is merciful and always accepts our repentance, but there’s still the spiritual law which needs to be satisfied after the commission of any sin. However much pleasure we get from the sin, we need to put in the same pain through our repentance. And why should we get to the point where we have to repent, and worry about restoring our peaceful relationship with God and our conscience? Wouldn’t it be better not to commit the sin in the first place? This is why we need information and enlightenment as regards the terrible sin of abortion.
