Recent proposals by authorities to restrict access to abortion have touched a nerve across Russia, which has embraced increasingly conservative values.
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a midnight Mass on Russian Orthodox Christmas in the village of Turginovo, about 150 kilometers northwest of Turginovo, Russia on Jan. 7, 2016. As Putin has formed a closer alliance with the Orthodox Church, the country has embraced what officials call traditional values, and Russia has sought to put more restrictions on abortion. Russias health minister has condemned women for prioritizing careers over childbearing.
After the USSR's collapse, government and health experts promoted family planning and birth control, sending abortion rates falling. At the same time, laws allowed women to terminate a pregnancy up until 12 weeks without any conditions; and until 22 weeks for many “social reasons,” like divorce, unemployment or income.promoting “traditional values” and seeking to boost population growth.
State clinics in one region referred women to a priest before getting an abortion. Authorities maintained the consultation was voluntary, but some women told the media they had to get a priest to sign off to get an abortion.The anti-abortion push comes as Russian women appear to be in no rush to have more children amidand economic uncertainty. Sales of abortion pills in 2022 were up 60%, according to Nikolay Bespalov, development director of the RNC Pharma analytical company.
They will require a special prescription, and not all pharmacies will stock them, said Irina Fainman, an activist in the northern region of Karelia, adding that getting a prescription takes time that women might not have when they need the pills. Conservative lawmakers failed to enact such a ban before, but the Health Ministry now says it is ready to consider it.
A document obtained by AP and cited by other media outlines language doctors are told to use, including saying pregnancy is “a beautiful and natural condition for every woman,” while an abortion is “harmful to your health and a risk of developing complications.” Olga Mindolina was contemplating an abortion in 2020, traumatized by an earlier, difficult pregnancy. But when a doctor in a state clinic in the western city of Voronezh asked her what she wanted to do, she said she didn’t know -– and was told, “In this case, you should give birth.”
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