News

By Kathleen Gilbert

MOSCOW, September 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a land where more children are aborted than survive the womb, a small movement is stirring to raise awareness of the evils of abortion, reports the Los Angeles Times.  According to the Times report, Russian doctors and government officials alike increasingly are urging Russian women to keep their children, citing moral and demographic reasons.

One woman, Marina Chechneva, a former abortionist, is now devoting her time to writing magazine articles on fetus development, something she knows well from years of handling aborted fetuses. She says she feels a responsibility for unborn children, and writes articles for women seeking abortion who do not realize “that what they’re doing is already a murder.” 

The Times spoke to several Russian post-abortive women, who confessed that what they had thought was a routine medical procedure caused severe emotional trauma that no one had told them about.

“You kill not only a child, a living being, but a part of yourself, something that was alive in you,” said 25-year-old Irina, who did not wish to reveal her last name.  “There’s a trauma and a grief you suffer. You murder a child. It was much more difficult than I expected.” 

Irina has had multiple abortions, like the typical Russian woman, fueled by an aversion to birth control and a pragmatic attitude toward her economic situation.  But doctors across the nation are trying to convince women that abortion is not just an easy economic fix.  “This is the decision of a lifetime,” gynecologist Natalia Smirnova said. “It’s very important for me to show them the ultrasound picture of their fetuses. This stops most of them.”

Demographic concerns are what mainly gave nascence to the fledgling pro-life movement, which struggles against a pervasive culture of abortion.  The Russian government recognizes that abortion is mostly to blame for the country’s population crisis, which President Vladimir Putin has called Russia’s biggest problem. 

According to the Times, Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service counted slightly more live births than abortions in Russia in 2007, the first time that has happened in decades. But doctors say there is likely no real shift in the trend, since more women are now choosing private clinics where abortions go unrecorded.

Since the growing Russian version of the pro-life movement does not currently intend to outlaw abortion, but only restrain it, the government is encouraging the new mentality by imposing tighter abortion regulations, pursuing economic bonuses for childbearing families, and changing the media’s portrayal of abortion in order to make the procedure appear less desirable.  Women should welcome children, says the Russian government, because they have a responsibility to help the State.

Natalia Karpovich, a member of the State Duma committee focused on family, women and children, said, “As a Russian woman and 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.

“The spiritual position, should be that this is murder and the woman who does this commits a sin.” The mother of five added, however, “Still, I want to stress it’s a woman’s choice.”

Read the original L.A. Times article:

Abortion foes begin to make their case in Russia
https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-adfg-russabort21-2008sep21,0,4354330.story