Two replies about abortion

Friday, January 7, 2022 (07:41)

Yesterday I received two very different responses to what I write about abortion in my report (80 ff).

A male foreigner wrote: “Thank you for giving the unborn a voice. I really love this beautiful suggestion. The core idea is that the innocent child is always protected by the society. Though I fear that people might go ahead and get pregnant without thinking of the consequences and their responsibilities for their action. They might say ‘After all there is a social structure that takes care of it if I do not feel like taking care of the child.’ The child is innocent in every way and should be accepted by the society, but there should be some level of responsibility from the parents as well.’”

I answered “Hey, you are right! How did I not see this myself earlier? Indeed my suggestion would raise this issue. It sounds indeed stupid to tell our young people ‘Enjoy and have fun, the government pays for the consequences’. The pro-care idea raises the question of who will pay the bill. Because raising a child is quite an expensive project. My mother uses to say (jokingly) that each child costs a house: if she would sum up the money our parents have spent for us 4 children during all these years (clothes, food, education, health…), then the sum would be enough to buy 4 houses.”

I also had another interesting feedback, this time from a 13-year old Estonian woman. I asked “When does a human become a human? When a male sperm cell enters the female egg cell? Or only later, in the 12th week of pregnancy (as the Estonian law about abortion and sterilization suggests)?” Her answer: in the 12th week of pregnancy. I asked several control questions (Why not later? How big is embryo in the 12th week and how does it look like?) and she remained firm and without any doubt to her opinion.

If I had time and resources, I would start a poll as follows among Estonians.

Millal saab embrüost inimene?

Raseduse katkestamise ja steriliseerimise seadus (RKSS) §6 ütleb, et rasedust võib katkestada, kui see on kestnud vähem kui 12 nädalat. Enne seda ei ole embrüo veel “inimene”, muidu oleks tegemist mõrvaga.

  1. Mida sina ise tunned? Embrüo on inimene alates

  1. viljastumise hetkest

  2. 12 rasedue nädalast

  3. muu vastus:

  1. Mida sa arvad, et günäkoloog või tervisetöötaja vastab esimesele küsimusele?

  1. a

  2. b

  1. Mida sa arvad, et algklasside õpetaja vastab esimesele küsimusele?

  1. a

  2. b

Conclusion for now

At the moment I have no idea how this will influence my report. Let’s keep in mind that the synod is not about abortion, but about synodality, i.e. about how to live and act together in peace, knowing that people have very different controversial opinions and that we don’t know the truth. Also keep in mind that the mission of the Church is to announce the Gospel, not to develop legal texts and regulations.

In a certain way we can say that national governments are an integral part of the Church because they do the work of developing legal texts and regulations that help us to live in peace.