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Ukrainian Catholic University Presents Abortion Address for President

21.01.2006, [16:15] // Speech, greeting, press release //

Lviv– Summing up the results of a conference on abortion held in Kyiv in December, representatives of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) on 17 January 2006 presented the address which the conference participants prepared for the president of Ukraine.

Present at the 17 January press conference were Yurii Pidlisnyi, director of UCU’s Institute of Marriage and Family Life, Petro Husak, head of the organizing committee of the conference of 3 December 2005 “Abortion: Denying the right to life,” and Elyzaveta Lisovska, a representative of the all-Ukrainian charitable foundation For Human Dignity and instructor of a program for preparing married couples run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv.

The address to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko reads, in particular: “We, the participants of the all-Ukrainian conference ‘Abortion: Denying the right to life,’ do hereby address you with a request to stop the biggest and most shameful genocide of the Ukrainian nation in history and to prohibit legally the murder of people at the stage of their intrauterine development. We add herewith grounded scientific bases for such a decision.”

According to Ukraine’s State Committee of Statistics, in many regions of the country the death rate is nearly three times as high as the birth rate. Over the last 12 years, the population of Ukraine has decreased by 5 million persons. According to the authors of the address, if this demographic dynamic continues, in a few decades the people of Ukraine will be mainly composed of immigrants from Asia.

Over the last 50 years, the Ukrainian nation lost 32 and 1/2 half million citizens, which is three times as much as the number of victims of the man-made famine of 1932-33.

“If we want to protect a child’s rights, we must protect its right to birth,” said Husak.

As was said at the press-conference, according to teaching of the church, a person receives an immortal soul already at the moment of conception, and, therefore, a human becomes a human as early as at the moment of conception, and termination of the person at a certain stage of development is considered to be murder. This position is upheld unanimously by representatives of different churches and religious organizations of Ukraine, as was said at the press-conference.

According to Husak, UCU’s Institute of Marriage and Family Life sent a program of abstinence education to Ukraine’s Ministry of Family and Youth in June 2005 but has received no response so far.

The address to the president says that the right to birth is an unconditional ground for all further rights of the child, and that, if the slaughter of unborn children continues, marking the year of the child and protection of its spiritual world will become a hypocrisy.

RISU note: As RISU reported on 30 December 2005, President Yushchenko requested to have 2006 proclaimed as the Year of the Protection of Children’s Rights, and on 27 December the Christian leaders of Ukraine released their address to children, parents, teachers, political and civic activists and all people of good will in Ukraine about proclaiming 2006 as the Year of the Protection of the Child’s Spiritual World.

The appendix to the address reads, in particular, “According to biology, the life of a human begins at the moment of the merging of the membranes of the sex cells of the parents, all qualities of the adult person being already there in the rudimentary form….

“According to medical science, an aborted baby goes through the same suffering as an adult killed by torture … 80 % of cases of female infertility are caused by abortion.

“According to economics, long term and stable growth of economic indicators is possible only on the assumption of a positive demographic increase. …

“According to legal theory, legal abortions are legalized negation of the right to life . …

“According to religion, a person receives an immortal soul at the moment of conception, that is, the mother’s womb contains a growing and developing human person, whose termination through abortion is equal to the deadly sin of deliberate murder of a born person. A law which grants some people ‘the right’ to take the lives of others drives citizens to violate God’s commandment: ‘Thou shall not kill!’ A state which passes such laws deprives itself of God’s blessing,” reads the appendix to the address.

Previous related RISU story:

• http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/news/article;8582/