What threatens the ban on free abortion
Late last week The State Duma was introduced a bill banning free abortions without medical indications. This initiative was made by a group of deputies from the Samara region, referring to the fact that all the leading religions of the world equate abortion with murder, and helping a woman in abortion affects the feelings of taxpayers and religious employees of insurance companies. Non-believing women still have the opportunity to have an abortion of their own accord, but for the money. We asked Victoria Sakevich to comment on what the prospect of canceling free abortions threatened in the future.
Victoria Sakevich Senior Researcher, Institute of Demography, HSE
Russia has been among the countries with the highest levels of abortion for many years; This is a really serious public health problem. Even now, when abortion rates have declined four times compared with the beginning of the 1990s, the total abortion rate in Russia is 0.8 per woman on average, that is, 80 out of 100 women have an average of one abortion during their lifetime, and For example, in England and France - 0.5 on average per woman (or 50 per 100 women), in Italy, the Netherlands - 0.3, in Germany and Belgium - 0.2. True, in 1992 in Russia per woman on average accounted for more than three induced abortions. It is impossible to completely eliminate abortions, because there is no perfect contraception, and sometimes pregnancy threatens the woman’s health.
Periodically, the leadership of our country announces a campaign to combat abortion. Unfortunately, more often the measures taken concern the restriction of the availability of abortion or its complete prohibition (as in the USSR from 1936 to 1955), rather than promoting the idea of "responsible parenthood" - planning the number of children and the dates of their birth, so that all children were welcome and timely for their parents, and did not appear by chance. We have no sex education, the work of a doctor in counseling women or couples is poorly paid, contraception is expensive and not subsidized even for the most vulnerable people. But over the past few years, a number of measures have been taken that limit the right to abortion. This is a reduction in the list of medical and social indications for abortion, and the introduction of the so-called "week of silence" - the mandatory waiting period between a woman’s application to the clinic and an abortion, and the prohibition of advertising abortion services.
Finally, we have almost eliminated the death rate from abortions, so why go back to the past?
It can be assumed that part of the freedom of abortion is responsible for reducing the birth rate, and the legislative restriction of abortion is considered as a measure aimed at its increase. Such statements were made by the Minister of Health. Under the prevention (prevention of abortion) officials imply the refusal of abortion in favor of birth, if an unwanted pregnancy happened. Demographers are well aware of the historical examples of countries that have survived the legal prohibition of abortion (Nazi Germany, socialist Romania, Stalin’s USSR, modern Poland). Such a measure had no positive demographic effects; on the contrary, maternal mortality and even the number of infanticide cases increased. Finally, we have almost eliminated the death rate from abortions, so why go back to the past? The birth rate, for example in Poland, despite the introduction of the abortion ban in 1993, continued its decline and fell in 2003 to one of the lowest rates in the world (1.2 births on average per woman).
What, in my opinion, it would be worth paying attention to health care managers, is the quality of medical care during pregnancy termination. The least traumatic for women's health is currently medical abortion; we share the proportion of abortions performed by the drug method, does not reach 10 percent.
Of course, such initiatives against the right to abortion fit well into the general conservative course of recent years. All the above measures to limit abortions were announced a couple of years ago by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia as recommendations in the field of family policy. The position of the church is clear: the church equates abortion with murder and seeks to ban it at all costs. But, firstly, Russia is a secular state, and secondly, the call to return to patriarchal values in the 21st century sounds very strange.
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