Crucifying Midwifes

Shortly before the beginning of the great Easter fast, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) 'appealed' publicly to the clergy to 'deprive the doctors and midwifes who perform abortions from participating in the Communion and to forbid them to cut the Slava  cake (Slava is the day of the Saint protector, tradition in the Serbian Orthodox Religion)' before they repent for their sins. The Synod estimated that 'infanticide is a sin before God which cries out for vengeance, condemned by the canon tradition of the Church, and as such it threatens to bring about the biological extermination of the Serbian nation'.

The first public comments on the bishops' threat came from a group of professors of Belgrade Faculty of Theology, Dimitrije Kalezic and Dragomir Sando. According to Prof. Kalezic's opinion, this 'measure has its religious and social dimensions, and it is not proclaimed just for the reasons of white plague, which has 'considerably' reduced the populace.' Sando adds that the decision of the Synod is fairly justified, since 'from the very moment of conception, human life represents, within its mother's womb, the gift, love and will of God', so: 'to kill a conceived child means to kill God within its mother's womb, to kill the embodiment of God in the shape of man or 'to kill God in man''. That sin represents the essence of all sins.'

THE LOSS OF MINDS: The representatives of SPC, reluctant to reveal their identity, would say that the Synod is some kind of a sacred government and, as such, they are allowed to make mistakes. Those who revealed their identity, explain the denial of Communion with different reasons and with much more concern. 'Each year, the crime of abortion wipes away the whole town (of the size of Sremska Mitrovica, Valjevo or Zajecar) in Serbia', says Dragomir Sando. 'We had plenty of wars in our recent history, our minds are vanishing, in general, we are suffering the loss of population', adds Kalezic. According to him, 'whoever says that the decision of the Synod is erroneous, I can tell him - he or she is not authorised to estimate that'.

As statistics have it, the number of abortions in FR Yugoslavia is gradually decreasing. The chief of staff of the Department of Family Planning at the Institute of Gynecology and Midwifery of Serbia, Dr. Slobodan Maran confirms (in 'Glas Javnosti' daily) that the number of anticipated pregnancy terminations in Belgrade, as the centre of reproductive population, since 1983 until 1997, fell from 45,968 to 14,356 cases. At the same time, the number of deliveries declined, though considerably slowly in comparison to the former (from 21,686 in 1983 to 15,139 in 1997). At one moment, that information - in the beginning of 1995 - was sufficient to the media for headings like 'White plague is halted!', although it was about the decline of the negative rate of population growth from 2.21 to 0.16, and it referred only to central Serbia. The demographic evaluation at that time - that there are no facts to support that the trend of a decline of the number of inhabitants in Serbia and Vojvodina is changing - in the meantime, the effect was just the opposite with the crisis in Kosovo, which according to demographic data, used to contribute to the growth of population.

THE BELLICOSE CHURCH: Concerning the reproduction of Orthodox population, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church became famous for its Christmas epistle in 1995 (Black robe against White Plague, VREME No.221, January 1st, 1995). On that occasion, Patriarch Pavle and 35 bishops noticed that 'women become pregnant because it is related to pleasure and fulfillment, but they do not want to bear and raise children because it supposedly requires too much energy and effort and finally puts their comfort at risk' and, also, that 'a number of women, which did not wish to have more than one child, now lament over the loss of their sole son in the recent armed conflicts, often condemning both God and people, but forgetting to accuse themselves for not having born more children to comfort themselves...'

Perhaps accidentally, Dimitrije Kalezic reminds us today in the same fashion that, due to sudden pregnancy terminations, 'the whole army of people is lost' How come an army (or 'army') is useful to the Church? What does the Holy Synod have to lose with the loss of an 'army' of the newborn? In the beginning of 1993, the Bishop of Zvornik and Tuzla, Vasilije (Kacavenda), as a clergyman and a member of the government, procured the legal prohibition of abortion in the Republic of Srpska, suggesting to the Synod of SPC to expand its application to 'all Serbian states. Where are those 'states' today, do the citizens of the Republic of Srpska speak and write in the Serbian dialect or record the required rate of population growth?

PRIESTS AND MIDWIFES: On Christmas 1995, the Holy Synod warned all women against abortion: 'when they appear before the Universal Judge , those mothers which did not allow their children to be born, shall meet those children above and they shall ask them sadly: 'Why did you have us killed, why did you not deliver us?!'' The real answer to that horrible picture lies in a painful discrepancy between that what women - including the Orthodox women - wish to have and what they actually have. Without supplementary explanations, it remains unclear whether the Synod considers that the Orthodox mothers did not fulfill the expectations of the Christmas appeal from 1995 (at least with bearing children to 'comfort' themselves), since it focuses a new threat on midwifes and doctors.

As far as the doctors are concerned, it is hard to believe that they are less pious as a social class than they had ever been throughout history. The other temptation, which they share with the Church - to support the government - does not make them more vulnerable. Their reaction regarding the threats of deprivation of the holy secrets was therefore expected, at least in the last week. Except one older case, there are no such doctors intending to renounce the practice of legal termination of pregnancy. The majority of those who revealed their opinion in the public suspect that the pre-Easter threat of the Synod of SPC would have any advantageous effects. The prohibition of abortion cannot contribute to the growth of population. Our closest example is the Orthodox Romania in which, neither the force of Chaushesky's 'gynecological police' active in the period between 1966 and 1989, managed to play a role in the growth of population but, on the other hand, the death rate of mothers at delivery and due to the inexperienced pregnancy termination was increased for 87%.

CRUDE REFUSAL: Less than one fifth of the world population today live in the conditions where abortion is forbidden. Such a legislature is characteristic of religiously organised or oriented communities. In that respect there is no sense in drawing some conclusions about the latest anathema by which SPC launches threats against the doctors, since that threat - in its basis - is directed against women. 'The idea of the Holy Synod of Bishops to deprive the doctors and midwifes who perform abortions from participating in the Communion and to forbid them to cut the Slava cake is nothing new'. 'SPC has so far offered enough evidence of regarding women as creatures of a secondary rank. Is it not a high time that heads of SPC demand forgiveness from women due to all the sins committed at the expense of women and in the name of the Church and faith?'

Having lost the battle for legalisation of abortion, the Catholic Church in Italy succeeded in acquiring the rights for doctors and medical staff to renounce the participation in performing abortions due to purely ethical reasons. In spite of that, Spain and Italy - as 'Catholic' states - have the lowest birthrate in Europe. According to some information to which Dr. Slobodan Maran refers, about 150,000 women are subject to illegal miscarriages per annum - the number of which would have been reduced to about 250 deaths, had there been no prohibitions. The legalisation of the purposeful termination of pregnancy in the former Yugoslavia (SFRY) in 1969 practically wiped from the list of the causes of death all those caused by illegally or unskillfully performed pregnancy terminations. Dr. Anastasije Markovic, professor at the Faculty of Medicine and one of the managers of Belgrade's Maternity Hospital, thinks that the threat of the Holy Synod of SPC may only have counter-effects. 'The Church should be aware of the fact that a considerable number of believers are women, which are definitely not going to like the new attitude', he stated, adding that he spoke as an educated man and a devoted Orthodox believer who christened his children and grandchildren, but also a founder of the temple of St. Sava.

WHY MIDWIFES?: Looking from a certain distance, it can be assumed that SPC officials only continued to 'develop' Christmas threats launched five years ago with this intimidating refusal of holy secrets, just shortly before the greatest Croatian holiday. Accepting the authority of Scripture, the medical arguments - to save the endangered lives, to take into consideration the reality of teenage pregnancies, sexual harassment, refugees, misery of the mundane hopelessness - can be, if not totally neglected, then at least made less important in comparison with the (un)certainty of the final judgment.

But why threatening the midwifes? In Serbian a midwife is a woman who helps at the delivery and the first person to take the child in her arms. Her sex, role, significance are much older than Christianity itself. It is hard to believe that the Synod of SPC included the midwifes in the accusation against that 'medical staff' who take part in 'infanticides'. The assumption that the mentioning of midwifes in the Synod's threats can be assigned to the category of a symptomatic subconscious lapse contains more human (or even Christian) fear than an amateurish constraint towards all those Christmas-Easter expressions of religious care for biological survival.

An Upsetting Discrepancy

I wish                    
one child (1.5%)            
two children (42.5%)        
three children (45.5%)        
four or more children (10.5%)     
four or more children (0.7%)

I have
no children ( 32.3%)
one child (21.5%)
two children (41.5%)
three children (4%)

Sources: Dr. Mirjana Rasevic, Towards Understanding the Abortion (the Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade)