Orthodox Church not in favor of banning abortion, spokesman says

A national discussion over abortion ensued after the United States Supreme Court's decision to overturn abortion rights last month.

In this context, representatives of the Romanian Orthodox Church issued a press release meant to clarify the institution's stance on the matter of the “sanctity of life, personal freedom, responsible choice, and death.” The statements, according to the spokesman of the Church, are meant to “calm, even if only temporarily, those who roll their eyes when they hear the words ‘God,’ ‘moral conscience,’ and ‘pro-life.’”

“The Church does not irrationally and unrealistically advocate for the totalitarian banning of abortion like the unconditional supporters of it do from the reverse, immune to arguments and taken by rage,” said Vasile Bănescu, spokesman of the Orthodox Church, cited by B1TV.

Instead, Bănescu said, the Church seeks to encourage bringing human beings to life and to support those who do it. He stated that the Church, through its multiple charities, offers help to mothers in need of it. Encouraging birth, and not infanticide, is part of the essence of religious morality, as well as ‘honest,’ secular bioethics, argued the spokesman.

Pro-choice arguments related to the woman’s freedom to her own body are, according to the Orthodox Church, “valid up to a point and only when it doesn’t affect another.” Bănescu maintained that no one has the right to take the life of another person.

The spokesman also said that the Church can only be pro-life, a counterweight to what he called the “culture of death” that promotes abortion as desirable. He added, however, that there are medically-justifiable exceptions that even the Church can accept.

When it cannot be justified through medical reasons, Bănescu said, abortion “remains a crime, morally speaking, before God, just like the totalitarian banning of abortion is a crime, civilly and politically unacceptable as well. What is at stake is the using of liberty with purpose, which means orienting it towards life, not towards its opposite,” he added.

The US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade sparked a debate in Romania. An actual debate was organized by the Romanian public broadcaster, pitting representatives of the pro- and anti-abortion camps against one another.