What the U.S. can learn from Stalin’s abortion ban

BY WENDY Z. GOLDMAN
JAN. 4, 2022

As the right to get an abortion in the United States is whittled away, state by state and statute by statute, we can learn important lessons about the impact of its repression from the history of one country where it was first legalized — and then re-criminalized.

In 1920, Soviet Russia, which would become the Soviet Union in 1922, became the first country in the world to legalize abortion. In an unprecedented decree, the state noted that punishing women or doctors for abortion had “no positive results. It drives the operation underground and makes women the victims of greedy and often ignorant abortionists who profit from this secrecy.”

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-04/stalins-abortion-ban-soviet-union

Russian Orthodox Church has ‘soft & flexible’ stance on abortion & does not demand practice be made illegal, spokesman reveals

26 Dec, 2020
By Jonny Tickle

The Russian Orthodox Church is not proposing a blanket ban on abortion and its official position is actually “more flexible” than a complete prohibition. That’s according to Vladimir Legoyda, the institution's main spokesperson.

Speaking on Saturday to RTVI, a New York-based Russian-language channel aimed at expats, Legoyda revealed that the Church is not entirely against the termination of pregnancy being legal.

Continued: https://www.rt.com/russia/510794-orthodox-church-abortion-position/

26.12.2020

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Oleg Apolikhin

Patriarch Kirill

Russian Orthodox Church

Putin Orders Government to Improve Abortion Prevention Efforts

Oct. 27, 2020
Moscow Times

President Vladimir Putin has urged the government to improve abortion prevention strategies in an effort to reduce the number of terminated pregnancies and offset Russia's population decline.

Putin’s order was made public days after Poland’s top court deemed abortions performed in cases of fetal defects to be unconstitutional. For Poland, which already had some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws, the decision amounted to a near-total ban on the procedure, sparking mass protests in over 150 Polish cities.

Continued: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/10/27/putin-orders-government-to-improve-abortion-prevention-efforts-a71865

27.10.2020

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Oleg Salagai

Russian Orthodox Church

Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner suggests funding cuts for abortion clinics

Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner suggests funding cuts for abortion clinics

May 29, 2020
Source: Deti.gov.ru

During her annual performance report, Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner, Anna Kuznetsova, proposed reducing funding for abortion clinics.

According to Kuznetsova, the amount of funding allocated to abortion clinics should be in inverse proportion to the number of abortions. “A clinic should be interested in saving the child, and not in providing services for the artificial termination of pregnancy,” she said.

Kuznetsova also suggested limiting the sale of medical abortion drugs at pharmacies.

The commissioner’s report has already been sent to the Kremlin.

Children’s Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova has consistently advocated for raising the birth rate in Russia and is known for her pro-life views. On May 28, she announced that she had given birth to her seventh child.

Source: https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/05/29/russian-children-s-rights-commissioner-suggests-funding-cuts-for-abortion-clinics

29.05.2020

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Moscow Halts Abortions During Coronavirus Outbreak: Activists

Moscow Halts Abortions During Coronavirus Outbreak: Activists

April 23, 2020

More than 100,000 pregnant women will be unable to undergo medical abortions in Moscow because of restrictions during the coronavirus outbreak, the women’s rights organization Nasiliyu.net (“No to Violence”) Center has said.

Only three out of the Russian capital’s 44 clinics have said they would continue to provide abortions through the national compulsory medical insurance program, the group said on its website Monday. The other 41 clinics told Nasiliyu.net that the procedure is unavailable “unless you’re brought in an ambulance.”

Continued: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/04/23/moscow-halts-abortions-during-coronavirus-outbreak-activists-a70082

23.04.2020

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When Soviet Women Won the Right to Abortion (For the Second Time)

When Soviet Women Won the Right to Abortion (For the Second Time)

03.08.2020
By Sasha Talaver

After a liberalization period following the Russian Revolution, the Stalin-era Soviet Union drastically restricted women’s right to abortion. But in the 1950s Soviet women won free and legal terminations — achieving the right to choose before almost all of their sisters in the West.

In today’s Russia, feminism is often regarded as something imported from the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union, just like foreign finance or the internet. In this context, the story of how Soviet women won the right to abortion is a sad case of lost memory — it having been forgotten that it was achieved here earlier than in Western countries. Yet this fight was an important example of Soviet women’s political activism — and a story that helps us reconstruct a wider history of socialist feminism in the USSR.

Continued: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/soviet-women-abortion-ussr-history-health-care

Pussy Riot performing in Alabama to protest ‘ridiculous’ abortion ban

Pussy Riot performing in Alabama to protest 'ridiculous' abortion ban

July 7, 2019
By Maggy DONALDSON

The Russian collective Pussy Riot will perform in Alabama on Thursday, a sold-out concert to raise money for women's rights groups in light of state's recent passage of a near-total ban on abortion.

Proceeds from the Birmingham benefit will go to Planned Parenthood and the Yellowhammer Fund, a group that gives assistance to women seeking abortions at one of the southern U.S. state's three clinics

Continued: https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/pussy-riot-performing-in-alabama-to-protest-%27ridiculous%27-abortion-ban

Regional Conference on Bringing the WHO Recommendations on Safe Abortion and Family Planning Closer to Women in Countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia

EASTERN EUROPE / CENTRAL ASIA – Regional Conference on Bringing the WHO Recommendations on Safe Abortion and Family Planning Closer to Women in Countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia

by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
December 18, 2018

Chisinau, Moldova, 15-16 November 2018

Organised by the Reproductive Health Training Centre, Moldova, with support from the Safe Abortion Action Fund

There were 65 participants. The meeting was in Russian with simultaneous translation in English. Participants included health professionals, health policymakers and NGO representatives from 11 counties in the region – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Russia.

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/eastern-europe-central-asia-regional-conference-on-bringing-the-who-recommendations-on-safe-abortion-and-family-planning-closer-to-women-in-countries-of-eastern-europe-and-central-asia/

Russia’s abortion debate highlights limit to church-state partnership

Perspectives | Russia’s abortion debate highlights limit to church-state partnership
The church has been pushing for a ban on abortion. The Kremlin isn’t interested.

Diana Dukhanova
Nov 5, 2018

Russia is an acknowledged leader of the global movement to assert "traditional" values. Yet when it comes to abortion – a bedrock issue for most traditionalists – the Kremlin is sticking to a largely pro-choice stance that puts it at odds with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Tension over abortion has been simmering for years between the church (ROC) and government. In September 2016, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill signed a petition to the federal government to ban abortion, calling for fetuses to receive the same legal protections as living persons. The petition's sponsor, leading Russian anti-abortion group For Life!, reached its goal of collecting 1 million signatures in August 2017, and late last year submitted the petition to President Vladimir Putin.

Continued: https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-russias-abortion-debate-highlights-limit-to-church-state-partnership

Russia – Officials Impose Short-Term Abortion Ban During Pro-Life Campaign

Officials Impose Short-Term Abortion Ban During Pro-Life Campaign

Aug. 06 2018

Hospitals in several Russian regions had imposed a de facto moratorium on abortions during an annual pro-life campaign run by the prime minister’s wife this summer.

Faced with the lowest birth rate in a decade, the Russian government seeks to reverse the demographic crisis with a $8.6 billion plan to encourage Russians to have more babies by offering mortgage subsidies and other social programs.

Continued: https://themoscowtimes.com/news/officials-impose-short-term-abortion-ban-during-pro-life-campaign-62447

06.08.2018