Russia is one of the few countries in the world where the number of abortions more than the number of live births.
For example, in 2001, 1.32 million children were born in Russia and 1.8 million abortions were performed.
These figures are especially tragic, given that Russia is facing a disastrous demographic crisis with the United Nations estimates that Russia could lose more than half of its population by 2050.
One oddity of the United States and living in Russia is a full day and night difference in attitudes toward abortion. In the United States seems to have real political militancy on both sides of the issue.
But in Russia there is ZERO public debate on this issue.
I personally have never seen this issue politicized or challenged in any way. In fact, abortion is usually just called "operations" that occurs in case of accidental pregnancy.
It's a complicated question, and I can only guess that the lack of public outcry on this in no small part because of the Communists ban religion in the Soviet era. Since the major religions condemn abortion as the gravest sin is universal, then the strict elimination of these moral boundaries, coupled with nearly free and on-demand access to abortion for all women in the early Soviet Union, certainly contributed to this current situation.
Russian women have a strictly private about their relationship, sex or health, so you will never hear about abortion on a personal level.
But on the other hand, after my stay here I know of several young women who became pregnant from her friends and decided to leave their children and try to make the best of him getting married.
One of these girls was a good friend of my platonic, who has just delievered a child 2 months ago. She and her new husband are both about 20 years. When she was dating this young man, she told me that if she ever got pregnant, she would never have an abortion because of her beliefs. More importantly .. her mother never would have approved it and will absolutely insist that she keep her child.
I personally believe that a growing number of women in this country who share the same attitude as my friend. Russian Orthodox Church has regained it once proud status in this country. And, as you read the following article in other Russian women go forth to counsel other women at all the facts about his decision to have an abortion.
Abortion foes begin to make their case in Russia
Doctors and politicians quietly trying to change the country's casual attitude to the procedure.
By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 21, 2008
MOSCOW - Marina abortion Chechneva remembers the old-style Russian gynecologists who worked in state hospitals and churned out back to back, like abortion Soviet factory workers. She remembers the women who "used to use abortion as a form of recreation, because in the USSR, they got three days off from work."
These days, Chechneva writes magazine articles about fetus development in hope of raising public opposition to abortion. After several years of handling fetuses, she explains, she began to feel the responsibility to unborn children.
"They should realize that what they are doing this is murder," she said.
Young antiabortion movement begins to move into Russia. Driven by the growing debate abortion as a moral issue and, above all, the government worried about demographics, doctors and politicians are trying to quietly below what is considered one of the world's highest abortion rates.
"The attitude has changed," abortion practitioner Alexander Medvedev. "Even in public clinics, doctors are trying to dissuade patients from abortion. Now teenagers come to us with already two or three abortions, and it's horrible."
It is a hard struggle. Doctors complain that contraceptive use remains unpopular and that many Russian women rely on abortion for birth control.
The government is desperately trying to persuade citizens to have more children. Russians are dying faster than they are born, a trend that has become one of the most serious problems facing this sprawling, scantily populated land.
The discussion is devoid of such terms as "pro-life" or "pro-choice." From doctors to patients to officials, nobody seems to give serious consideration to banning abortion. But the government recently imposed new restrictions on the procedure after the 12th week of pregnancy, and toughened the language waiver that Russian women must sign before the termination of pregnancy.
Late term abortions used to be easily accessible on "social" grounds: the woman was simply visiting a social worker, complain that it can not raise a child, and she could collect a stamp of failure. These days, exceptions are available only for extreme circumstances, such as the sudden death of her husband or a medical emergency.
In 2007, the first time in decades, the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia was considered slightly more live births than abortions in Russia. But doctors say those statistics are wrong because of the growing number of women who opt for undocumented abortions in private clinics.
Legal system aside, many gynecologists have launched their own small efforts to persuade patients to go through pregnancy. Although Russian law requires parental consent for girls younger than 16 years, many doctors boast that they involve the parents of any patient younger than 19.
"This is a decision for life," gynecologist Natalia Smirnova said. "It is very important for me to show them the ultrasound picture of their fetuses. This stops most of them."
Speaking in her private clinic while women in their 20s filled the waiting room outside, Smirnova pointed to pictures of fruit, taped to her office walls and described the conversation she holds with a potential abortion patient.
"I ask her to please explain to me and give me a reason why it can not maintain her pregnancy. I am not satisfied:" I'm afraid. "I want to hear the whole story." As the father to be to tell you what your mother said? "There were times when I myself called her mother in another city. Turning to her mother, her partner, the future father, you can often succeed in making her change her mind and keep the pregnancy."
Women interviewed for this article spoke wistfully, even painfully - but with a major grain of pragmatism - about the decision before the end of pregnancy. Mostly sheltered from public or political debate about abortion, they tend to describe the procedure, medical decisions, which a surprising personal aftershocks.
"You kill not only the child, the living entity, but part of me, what is alive in you," said Irina, a 25-year-old Muscovite who has had three abortions. Young women who were interviewed declined to give their names. "There's trauma and grief you suffer. You murder a child. It was much harder than I expected."
Still, Irina repeatedly chose abortion when she felt that she was without options - unemployed despite her university degree in accounting, married to the first person and then another who did not want children. She never used birth control. She became pregnant, and then went to a public hospital and waited in the queue does not cost an abortion.
"It's like a conveyor belt," she said. "Women sit next to the abortion room in a line, and it happens very quickly."
It should not be so casual, Russian lawmakers to fight.
"Theological position," said Natalia Karpovich, a leader of the Duma committee focused on family, women and children "should be that it is murder, and the woman who does it commit a sin. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that this choice of a woman. "
Karpovich among Russian lawmakers who have insisted on media reports casting abortion in a less neutral light. It also supports new measures meant to encourage childbirth by paying cash bonuses and open new kindergartens across the country.
"Like a pack of cigarettes or bottles of alcoholic beverages, advertising of abortion should be obliged to warn about the consequences," she said.
"The fact that they can lead to infertility, that some bad changes may occur in women."
Summer rain has fallen in the streets, and Karpovich was holding court in an expensive cafe near the Kremlin, flitting from table to table in a series of quick meetings. Her fingers flashed with diamonds, her body was wrapped in Pucci-style dress. She herself, she said, expecting fifth child.
"As a Russian woman and a mother, I feel the presence of the state that my child has a future, that my country needs me as a mother and needs my child," she said, smiling quietly.
"Economic development in Russia has led us from the priority of building a family and gave a major boost to an abortion."
But working women, many of whom came of age during the financial chaos of the 1990s, complained that the massive influx of cash from the sale of oil did not flow down fast enough. They simply can not afford to contemplate the birth, they say.
"It works as follows: first priority is to get a career, the apartment, car," says Julia, 21-year-old secretary at the company's waste water and dead ringer for Scarlett Johansson. "Then suddenly it was too late to have children, and it hurts you all the time."
Last year, Julia discovered during a routine physical that she was eight weeks pregnant. "The guy, whom I met was totally against having children, and I do not want to have a child with him, in particular," she said. "It's so easy these days. You can just go out and do it, and nobody thinks about it."
After the abortion, nothing changed. She stayed with her boyfriend, and of contraception. Six months later, she was pregnant again. At that time, her doctor told her that she could not be another abortion so soon. So she found a private clinic and a doctor with fewer doubts.
"In the past it was easier to raise children. Despite all the shortages, it was so cheap and there was a lot of free services," she said with regret, with a shrug.
"I know I have a duty to my country, but I think it my duty to myself stronger. You do not have a child just to continue the line."
