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The Russian Orthodox Church wants to make abortion dependent on the husband’s consent

The Russian Orthodox Church has proposed that voluntary termination of pregnancy at the request of a married woman also requires her husband’s consent, Russia’s TASS agency reported Thursday.

The proposal was made by the Patriarchal Commission on the Family, the Protection of Maternity and Childhood, whose president, Father Fyodor Lukyanov, defended that the decision should not depend only on the woman if she is married.

“The artificial termination of pregnancy at the request of a woman must be performed with the voluntary consent of not only the woman, but also her husband”said the religious during a round table discussion in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

The debate was organized by the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children’s Affairs as part of the International Christmas Educational Lectures, according to TASS.

Lukyanov described the patriarchal commission’s proposal as “a reasonable step towards limiting abortions” in the Russian Federation.

“We understand that the state can only move in this direction gradually, but we have to move in this direction,” he said.

The patriarchal commission also considered that the voluntary termination of pregnancy should only be carried out after psychological counseling.

As for the termination of pregnancy for medical reasons, Lukyanov said that the health of the woman should be taken into account, not the child.

He also argued that the law should provide criminal and administrative responsibility for the illegal termination of pregnancy, as well as for the publicizing of abortions.

He said 75% of abortions in Russia are performed in private clinics, with no pre-abortion counseling and no other legal procedures followed.

“This too must be fought”he said, quoted by TASS.

Lukyanov called on the state to recognize the termination of pregnancy requested by a woman as a socially negative phenomenon.

“It is imperative that the state declares that it considers abortion a negative, social and inhumane phenomenon that harms the reproductive capacity and health of our people”he added, according to TASS.

According to official statistics, Russian health services performed more than 553,000 abortions in 2020, a significant decrease from 2000, when that number exceeded two million.

Russia had a population of 147.1 million in 2021, according to preliminary data from the census conducted that year and made available on the respective ‘website’.

Compared to the previous census, in 2000, the population grew by 1.4 percent, with over two million people (1.4 percent).

The two censuses have a different territorial universe, as Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, with a population then exceeding two million.

Author: DN/Lusa

Source: DN

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