Abortion has had a complicated history in the Soviet Union and Russia.
FILE - Soviet leader Josef Stalin raises his right hand in salute while reviewing a May Day Parade in Red Square in Moscow, on May 1, 1946. Abortions were banned under Stalin but became commonplace under later Kremlin leaders. Under President Vladimir Putin, who has forged a has forged a powerful alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church, now promotes"traditional values" and seeks to boost population growth, officials are considering restricting access to abortion once again.
“My grandmother worked as a teacher in a vocational school. She was telling me stories about abortions being performed with wardrobe hangers in the dormitories,” said Lina Zharin, a psychotherapist and feminist activist in Kaliningrad, where lawmakers are considering banning abortion in private clinics.
“Anesthesia was in short supply. … There was no privacy -– you would have your abortion with other people in the ward,” she said. Painkillers were of low quality or scarce, she added, “so women were often in excruciating pain.” By the late 1990s, federal funding fizzled because of conservative opposition. Abortion regulations remained less restrictive, however. Women could terminate a pregnancy until 12 weeks without any conditions, and until 22 weeks for many “social reasons,” such as divorce, unemployment or low income.
Yerofeyeva and a reproductive health group she ran, Russian Association of Population and Development, pushed back against these proposals, and only two were adopted nationally: allowing doctors to refuse if against their beliefs, and the mandatory waiting period of 48 hours to a week.
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