Will abortion be banned in Russia?

Editorial “Layout” November 30, 2023 |

The Russian Orthodox Church is trying to limit them as much as possible, but the Kremlin does not like this idea

In recent months, Russia has adopted a number of decisions limiting women’s rights to terminate a pregnancy. Vestka’s sources in power believe that things will not come to a complete ban on abortion, since the Kremlin does not like the idea and could reduce support for Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections. And they explain the new restrictions by the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is putting more and more pressure on the regions.

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“If we don’t wash, we just roll”

The Russian Orthodox Church is unable to achieve the removal of abortion from the compulsory medical insurance system, so the church will fight for a complete ban on abortion in private clinics . A source close to the leadership of the Church told Vorstka about this, and the same version was confirmed by two interlocutors in parliament. The outcome of this confrontation, however, seems unclear to them. The Kremlin, they say, does not support the idea of ​​​​restricting abortions, because it “clearly understands that because of this it could lose a large part of the female electorate.”

But the Russian Orthodox Church has recently been achieving its goal “by trick or two,” says one of the interlocutors in parliament. The increase in pressure from church authorities on secular authorities, especially on the cabinet of ministers, was known earlier, he says. Thus, in 2019, Veronica Skvortsova, who was then Minister of Health, was “ pressured ” to strengthen cooperation between her department and the Russian Orthodox Church to prevent abortions, the interlocutor recalled.

Related to such pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church are the words of the current head of the ministry, Mikhail Murashko, that caused a strong reaction in July that women should not postpone having children “until later.” “He doesn’t think so himself, he blurted out and blurted out, he shuffled in front of the Russian Orthodox Church,” the source of “Layout” is sure. “Sometimes such statements are needed to make the clergy fall behind. Because in reality, the authorities understand well that abortions cannot be taken away from Russian women.”

The second interlocutor, close to parliament, also calls restrictions in the regions related to abortion “not the Kremlin’s decision.” “The topic is being pushed by the Russian Orthodox Church in certain regions, decisions are left to the authorities of the constituent entities, and metropolitans and other church authorities put pressure on them,” he explained. “ The Kremlin needs improved demographic policy, beautiful indicators, but how you achieve them is your problem, most importantly, don’t damage our electoral ratings .”

The Kremlin has taken the position of “Buridan’s donkey” on this issue, the source concludes. He also called the regional authorities “caught between two fires.” They need to show the presidential administration positive demographic results, and not scare away women from supporting the president in the March 2024 elections.

Vorstka’s interlocutor in the leadership of one of the regions of central Russia agrees with him. According to him, “working with abortion is not an instruction, but a recommendation” from the federal leadership. The recommendation is part of “a set of proposed federal measures” that “governors can look at if they want to be paid attention to.” “This is not even a ‘pharmacy’ initiative ; it is promoted more by the embassy and the metropolitan,” he explained. According to him, there are other measures on the list that have nothing to do with abortion. “For example, about additional financial support for large families. Some regions followed this path, but no one naturally noticed this,” he added.

A source close to the church paints a more complete picture: according to him, the Russian Orthodox Church is pursuing the topic of a complete ban on abortion in Russia, but realizes the impossibility of this without a serious improvement in the quality of life in the country. The motivation for this struggle is “purely moral and ethical.” In addition, the church believes that “there should be as many Russians as possible when it comes to resisting the West.” Representatives of the Church have been discussing this topic with the Kremlin for “more than a decade,” and the presidential administration has not given and is not giving “carte blanche” for a complete ban on abortion. But with the beginning of the war, the situation changed: due to the departure of men to the front and their mass departure, the authorities began to fear a demographic hole, the source claims. And now this coincides with the opinion of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Orthodoxy has become a “quasi-national” idea in the country over the past two years , continues Vorstka’s interlocutor. “The Church became even more than before, the mouthpiece of the authorities, the authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church began to fight for the same ideals even more actively than before,” he explained. “And the church little by little began to seek support in areas of interest to it, including restricting abortion.”

What will happen to the reproductive freedom of Russian women?

Having received time after time refusal from the federal center on its proposal to completely ban abortion, the church is exploring the possibility of other measures. For example, she pushes for less access to contraception and more pressure on women who choose to have an abortion.

The first method is to limit the sale of emergency contraception. The Russian Orthodox Church partially succeeded in achieving its goals: in October 2023, the Ministry of Health introduced an order limiting the sale of drugs for medical abortion - mifepristone and misoprostol. Murashko then argued that preventive contraceptives containing these substances would not be affected by the new measures. But there is no clarification in the text of the order; only the substance is indicated there - mifepristone, and not the names of the trademarks.

Drugs for medical abortion will be subject to subject-quantitative registration from September 1, 2024. This means that their appointment will become a complex bureaucratic procedure and availability will decrease. It is now impossible to buy emergency contraceptives such as “Zhenale”, “Gynepriston” and “Vneplania” (which contain mifepristone) without a prescription in a pharmacy , a source close to the Moscow Department of Health confirmed to Vorstka. Previously, the lack of a prescription was looked at “with a blind eye,” he says.

In addition, contraceptives that do not contain mifepristone, such as Postinor, have stopped being sold without a prescription, the source said. They come to pharmacies for inspections, and owners and pharmacists face serious sanctions for over-the-counter sales, the source said. Indeed, in ten metropolitan pharmacies the author of the article was unable to buy any of these contraceptives without a prescription. “And the prescription sale of such drugs makes no sense at all: that’s why emergency contraception is needed, so that you can use them quickly,” says Vorstka’s interlocutor.

The creator of the Emergency Contraception Storage Fund, Irina Fainman, confirmed in a comment to Vorstka that sometimes difficulties with the purchase of drugs arose in other regions. “I can say that there were few difficulties with our procurement, but those that did arise also with emergency contraception with mifepristone, and with other types of EC without it (Postinor, Escapelle, Postiplania),” she clarified. According to the activist, sales of drugs without a prescription were most often refused in Moscow pharmacies, but “there were precedents for refusal to sell without a prescription in Bryansk, Rostov-on-Don, Omsk, Lipetsk, Kirov .”

Fineman also said that after the news about the sales restrictions, some of the products began to rise in price. “In the Far East and Siberia, EC often costs more than in the European part of Russia, and sometimes even significantly more, by 200–300 rubles,” she said.

The second way in which the Russian Orthodox Church is trying to prohibit women from birth control is to reduce the period at which it is possible to have an abortion. At the end of October 2023, the Duma Committee on Health Protection organized an expert round table on termination of pregnancy. The proposals of the Russian Orthodox Church were read out there: eight weeks instead of 12, at which abortion is now possible. And carry it out only after an ultrasound and demonstration of the mother’s fetal heartbeat. The priests also proposed obliging women to obtain the consent of their spouse for an abortion.

In addition, the clergy insist on increasing the period of the procedure after going to the clinic from 48 hours to seven days. Because of this delay, some pregnant women may not have time to have an abortion on time . According to “Caution. Media”, the document presented by the Russian Orthodox Church in the State Duma also provides for new penalties - in particular, for inducing abortion and for advertising it. Thus, the Church expects to reduce the number of abortions by 60%.

The third method for the Russian Orthodox Church is ideological work. It was precisely because of the “psychological treatment” of the Russian Orthodox Church that regional authorities began to make decisions to limit abortions on their territory, Vverstka’s sources say. According to the publication’s interlocutor in parliament, after a “conversation with clergy,” for example, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Tatarstan, Irina Volynets, proposed giving health workers at state clinics the right to refuse to perform abortion services due to “ideological considerations.”

Church authorities have recently addressed the moral and ethical aspects related to abortion more than once. Thus, Patriarch Kirill, at the opening of the XI Church-wide Congress on Social Ministry in mid-November, called abortion one of the most important Russian problems. He stated the need to discourage pregnant women from this procedure. “It is important that a woman who comes in confusion to an institution where her fatal mistake can be realized can come into contact with an alternative point of view, that is, that there is no need to have an abortion, which would be presented calmly and reasonably,” he addressed the women. - This is your business, sisters. You will find the language, they will understand you.” The patriarch recommended extending the practice of administrative liability for inducing abortion to all regions .

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How does the Russian Orthodox Church work and who helps it?

In its recent investigation , the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAS) reported that the Russian Orthodox Church is pushing restrictions on abortion through some social movements and foundations. One of the largest is “Women for Life”.

The fund is headed by TV presenter of the Spas channel Natalya Moskvitina and its general director Boris Korchevnikov. Their activities began as a grassroots social movement; its activists organized anti-abortion rallies and gave lectures on pre-abortion counseling. Then a charitable foundation was founded and the “Hello, Mom” project was launched. It is designed to “surround a pregnant woman with multi-level care from the moment of conception,” according to the foundation’s website. They were presented, in particular, at the congress of the “World Russian People's Council” - a public organization operating under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church. Subsequently, nine regions entered into official agreements with the fund - Komi, Mordovia, Tatarstan, Arkhangelsk, Tambov, Tula, Novgorod, Tver and Magadan regions. According to the FAS, before the New Year, Women for Life also hopes to sign an agreement with the Kaluga region, and then with the authorities of the Chelyabinsk, Voronezh and Lipetsk regions.

The main page of the foundation’s website shows the “saving babies” counter - in total and for the current month. According to the latest data, in November 81 babies were “saved” - that is, fund employees dissuaded 81 women from having an abortion . It also states that the fund accepts assistance for refugees from Donbass and that among its partners are United Russia (the project received a subsidy from the party in 2022), the Spas TV channel, the Foma magazine, the Union of Orthodox Women, and so on.

As Vorstka’s interlocutor, close to the Russian Orthodox Church, said, the church is indeed closely connected with the foundation. According to him, the Russian Orthodox Church, among other things, oversees the volunteer movement associated with Women for Life. It is volunteers on social networks, chats and hotlines who should dissuade women from having abortions. “Priests and their experience are brought in to train them,” the source says. “Let’s say this: priests deal with these pregnant women, unhappy, constantly doubting,” he emphasized. “Of course, there are certain words that are spoken to such parishioners, techniques that are used to convince them.” According to the interlocutor, the techniques were not specially developed and are passed on “rather from priest to priest, by word of mouth.” Church representatives share these techniques with volunteers, he claims. The main thing in such conversations, according to the priests, is not to alienate the woman, but to scare her enough so that she doubts her decision not to give birth, the source says.

The head of Women for Life, Natalya Moskvitina, also heads the regional branch of the fund in Mordovia, as follows from SPARK data. It was Mordovia that became the first of eight regions of Russia where abortions are limited or fines have been introduced for “inducing” them. Last year, the federal foundation won a grant of 5 million rubles. - the largest of the regional subsidies - in this republic. In September of this year, Women for Life received 1.3 million rubles. at the Moscow Mayor's grant competition. This amount was allocated for the “Mother’s Window” project - assistance with food and things to refugees, single parents, mothers of many children and pregnant women.

Illustrations: Dmitry Osinnikov

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