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In contrast to the repentant mother who yearns for mercy, above and to the right of her, is a series of women, who purposely and intently present their infants for slaughter for various worldly reasons; uncontrolled sensuality, hard-heartedness, superficiality and indifference. could easily lead someone to suppose that this amounted to a condemnation of the women. As a man I get uneasy making any assumptions about women who find themselves in this situation, and think we need to show Christian charity in our utterances. Are many women really indifferent to the fate of their unborn child? Thats possible I guess. But I think it was simply saying that those specific people illustrated in the Icon "presented their infants for slaughter for various worldly reasons..." and not that every person who ever had an abortion shared in those same motives or level of hard hardheartedness etc. Those motivations are common enough to warrant illustration in an icon regardless of the fact that they are not true in every single case. Just as it would be ok to illustrate similar things about other sins like stealing, rape, etc.. by picturing say a rapist who “with uncontrollable worldly lust and desire rapes a person” ,etc.

As a general rule (of which there are always going to be exception) those statements are generally true. for example it speaks of :

Worldly intentions - the intention to take the life of ones child would of necessity be worldly and not spiritual . If ones mind is totally free from worldly impulses and desires one would be incapable of sinning and therefore wouldn't have an abortion.

uncontrolled sensuality - If one is not willing to keep or give for adoption a child that results from a sex act then that specific sex act would be an act of sensuality ( unless the person was raped or a minor and couldn't consent which obviously does occur at times **) or if the sex is between unmarried partners it would also qualify as "sensuality".

hard-hardheartedness and indifference - Unless the abortion was done against the mothers will it would be hard not to impute hard hardheartedness because a "soft heart" wouldn't be willing to abort. As for indifference- apparently enough indifference existed to not spare the life of the child. Again this isn't true of every single case but it's certainly common enough to warrent illustrating in an icon.

superficiality- Very often abortions are committed because the person does not want to bear the burdens (in terms of money, time, lack of a social life, etc) of a child. That is the definition of superficiality in my view.

I'm not saying that (nor is the Icon writer I would assume) to condemn anyone. I readily admit I've committed numerous sins out of bad intentions, worldly lust , indifference , etc myself and I'm sure the Icon writer has as well.

* Less than 1 percent of abortions in the US are commited because of rape.