Dec 15, 2023
Warsaw (AFP) – Russia's radical conservative turn since it invaded Ukraine is changing life inside the country, with even the long-held right for women to have abortions being questioned.
Russia has a decades-old tradition of legal abortions, with the issue less divisive as in many more religious Western countries. But over the last few months a flurry of regions have rushed to restrict abortions in private clinics, yielding to demands from the Russian Orthodox church.
BY ILONA GERSH
The Militant, Vol. 87/No. 46
December 2, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin is leading a drive to severely restrict women’s right to get an abortion in Russia, which in recent history has a relatively high abortion rate, an annual average of 46 per 1,000 women. At the same time, his government is seeking to limit aid to Russian families, as the pressures from Moscow’s genocidal war against the people of Ukraine is hitting increasingly hard on working people.
Putin and his cronies are dismayed by the plummeting birthrate in Russia. The rate of population decline has almost tripled since 2020. His war against Ukraine has so far resulted in a death toll of some 120,000 Russian soldiers, with 180,000 more wounded. Close to 1 million youth have left the country since the beginning of the war, seeking to avoid the draft and Putin’s deepening assault on political rights.
Continued: https://themilitant.com/2023/12/02/putin-moves-to-abolish-womens-right-to-abortion-in-russia/
Experts say crackdown on abortion drugs and services is part of a project to instil ‘certain values’ in society.
By Katie Marie Davies
28 Nov 2023
Russia has long touted itself as a country home to what President Vladimir Putin often calls “traditional family values”. The Federal Assembly has cracked down on the LGBTQ community, passing legislation outlawing gender-affirming surgeries and banning “gay propaganda”.
Now social conservatives have a new target: reproductive rights. Terminating a pregnancy is a legal and widely available procedure in Russia, but in recent weeks and months, a flurry of new laws appear to limit abortion access amid fears of further population declines and a push towards conservatism.
Katie Balevic
Nov 25, 2023
Top Russian authorities are restricting abortion access, calling the procedure a "disaster."
It comes amid the state's concerns over population growth, particularly where it impacts military recruiting, according to the BBC. Some one in three women claim to have gotten the procedure, and more than 500,000 pregnancies were terminated in 2022, the outlet reported.
Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-authorities-are-restricting-abortion-access-2023-11
Russian lawmakers are looking into banning abortions in private clinics, and new laws are already threatening fines for "incitement" to abortion in some parts of the country. Many fear that a total ban might be coming.
Darko Janjevic
Nov 22, 2023
Women seeking to end their pregnancy in Russia have been facing many new obstacles in recent months — the government is limiting the sale of abortion drugs, the Russian Orthodox Church is pushing to ban abortion in private clinics, and two Russian administrative regions have already imposed fines for "incitement" of pregnant women to abortion.
Church officials are also calling for laws that would make it mandatory for married women to obtain their husband's consent before ending their pregnancy. Separately, Russian senator Margarita Pavlova, herself a graduate of the Chelyabinsk State Institute of Culture, recently said it was, "necessary to stop directing girls towards gaining higher education… which then, essentially, leads to nothing."
Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/russia-whats-behind-the-anti-abortion-push/a-67512380
22nd November 2023
By Vitaly Shevchenko
Russian authorities are limiting access to abortions in an attempt to confront the country's longstanding demographic crisis.
Measures include making it an offence trying to persuade a woman to have an abortion and pressuring private clinics to stop carrying out the procedure.
Feminist groups say the campaign is putting the lives of women at risk. The Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, is playing a key role in the anti-abortion campaign.
18 November 2023
Sonia Mustaeva, exclusively for Novaya Gazeta Europe
The head of annexed Crimea’s Health Ministry, Konstantin Skorupsky, announced on 9 November that all private clinics on the Black Sea peninsula would stop providing abortions except when medically necessary.
He said the region’s private clinics “voluntarily” decided to make this change following a proposal he made along with other regional authorities. Now women who want an abortion will have to go to state clinics, where doctors are likely to try to dissuade them from having the procedure.
Continued: https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/11/18/matters-of-state-en
By DASHA LITVINOVA, Associated Press
October 26, 2023
TALLINN, Estonia -- They were banned under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin but commonplace under later Kremlin leaders. Now, after less than a century, official attitudes about abortion in Russia are changing once again.
Although abortion is still legal and widely available, new restrictions are being considered as President Vladimir Putin takes an increasingly socially conservative turn and seeks to reverse Russia's declining population.
Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/stalin-putin-abortion-complicated-history-russia-104419114
Aug 3, 2023
Moscow Times
Russia's republic of Mordovia has become the country’s first region to outlaw the act of “coercing” women into undergoing abortion, independent media reported.
The regional-level law passed Thursday potentially sets the stage for similar laws across the country.
By Leyla Latypova
July 27, 2023
The Russian government could be moving closer toward outlawing abortion, experts and activists have told The Moscow Times, as its wartime stifling of freedoms spreads to sexual and reproductive health rights.
While Russia has historically had a liberal abortion policy — with the exception of the Stalin-era ban — the conservative turn among the country's leadership, combined with a push from the Russian Orthodox Church, have put a target on the issue.
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