NÉMETH Gábor (Hungary)

Assistant professor, Office Director of the Secretariat of the Hungarian Catholic Episcopal Conference

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Lecture and abstract of the conference entitled:
Demography and the Culture of Relationship between Couples
27-29 May 2021, Hungary
Organized by Family Science Alliance, Batthyány Society of Professors and European Family Science Society


 

Pro-choice and the demographic crisis

Abstract

The Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference published a circular in December 2020 on abortion as main topic emphasizing that this problem has been accompanying our civilization for decades: only in 2018 there were 26,941 legal abortions performed in Hungary. Abortions itself envisage a huge challenge, however this phenomenon is part of a more severe and complex problem, namely that in the 21st century, technology and science is detached from human community serving individual satisfaction. Our country and our Western civilization are struggling with a severe demographic crisis of which the labor shortage and migration are only one aspect, but the cause is much deeper, namely the anti-life mentality that is palpable in the society as a whole.

The abortion-related contemporary debates are on one hand about life, its value and its sacrednesss, but there is another, not less relevant side of the debate namely that autonomy and social needs interfere in this question. People as the image of God have freedom, but where is the limit of this freedom? Do we have the right to go to the ends, do we have the right to make a decision about the life of another person, or do we have to submit ourselves to the interest of society?

A civilization the members of which seek only their own comfort and prosperity lacks solidarity, it only consists of individuals, but mankind’s survival was ensured by our predecessors without forgetting that we are also indebted to our children.

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