Russian authorities have taken to discouraging abortion in an attempt to confront the country’s longstanding demographic crisis: measures include making it an offense trying to persuade a woman to have an abortion, and pressuring private clinics to stop carrying out the procedure.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, is playing a key role in the anti-abortion campaign.
“As a member of the clergy, I testify that an abortion is a disaster and a tragedy for the woman those close to her”, Patriarch Kirill said in January.
“These initiatives will only lead to a dramatic increase in the number of illegal abortions and a huge number of maimed and killed Russian women”, said the Urals Feminist Movement group, which has organized small-scale protests in favour of abortion rights.
According to official figures, Russia’s population has lessened with 2 million from 2001, when President Vladimir Putin first came to power.
Religious authorities say a key factor for the demographic crisis is the high number of abortions.
Indeed, almost a third of Russian women say they have had an abortion.
In 2022, more than 500,000 pregnancies were terminated, compared to 1.3 million children born in Russia.
“The population can be increased as if by waving a magic wand: if we solve this problem and learn how to dissuade women from having abortions, statistics will go up immediately”, Patriarch Kirill claims.
Now, the Health Ministry has drawn up guidelines telling medics how best to dissuade women from having an abortion, the BBC has found.
Doctors are encouraged to tell pregnant women who are younger than 18 that young parents bond better with their children “because they are practically from the same generation”.
If a pregnant woman is single, doctors are to tell her that “having a child is no obstacle to finding a life partner”.
But what’s more: authorities are restricting the sale of medication used to end pregnancies, sales of which increased by over 50% last year. From September 2024, pharmacies will be required to register the sale of such pills in special databases.
The government is also offering financial incentives to pregnant women and those who give birth, including payments of up to 524,500 roubles (£4,680, $5,830) which can be used to purchase property or pay for schooling.
A fifth of abortions in Russia are carried out in private clinics. Governors in 10 Russian regions are making efforts to stop private clinics from performing abortions.
Crimea, now annexed, was the first territory where private clinics stopped performing abortions in early November. Days later, it was followed by the Kursk region, where four out of five private clinics no longer offer the service. The Kursk region deputy governor, Andrei Belostotsky, called this “a significant event” because almost all women wishing to terminate their pregnancy will have to go to state hospitals, where the authorities will “actively work with them” trying to make them change their mind.
Another initiative proposed by Patriarch Kirill and already implemented in parts of Russia is a ban on “incitement to abortion”.
As an example, the patriarch pointed to the western region of Mordovia, which has introduced fines of up to 200,000 roubles ($2,250; £1,800) for trying to persuade a pregnant woman to have an abortion. He said such bans should be introduced across the country.
Experts fear that the anti-abortion campaign will harm women’s health by discouraging safer medical abortions.
“This will be a blow against medical abortions because this was the method promoted by the vast majority of private clinics. More than 80% of their procedures were medical abortions, while state hospitals mostly perform surgical ones”, the WHO’s Ms Yerofeyeva said.
“Surgical abortions carry higher risks of complications, side effects and injuries. That’s why the whole world is moving away from them.” Yerofeyeva further fears that the clampdown on legal abortions will trigger a spike in dangerous illegal procedures.
