“Well, are we going to give birth or what?” – these words should have been heard by every pregnant woman at the doctor’s appointment. Today, according to the law, the rights of the child are granted from the moment of birth. Religious experts are convinced that protection of life and health must be afforded to an unborn child from the moment of conception. They also draw attention to the fact that today there is not only no legal concept of what an artificial termination of pregnancy is, but the woman herself is not responsible for this. Often, when making a decision, the opinion of the spouse is not taken into account. The decision to terminate a pregnancy can be made independently from the age of 15.
According to the doctor and deputy of the State Duma Airat Farrakhov, today our legislation is one of the most liberal in the countries in relation to abortion. He told how over the centuries the law and the attitude towards abortion changed in our country: in the XV-XVIII centuries, penance was imposed on midwives for 15 years, in the XVII century, abortion was punishable by death. Under Pedro I, the death penalty was replaced by hard labor for six years, and the mother was sent to a penitentiary for three years for killing the fetus. The Soviet government first legalized abortion and then banned it. In 1993, the law gave women the right to make their own decisions. Women enjoy this right to this day.
– More often, women with the third and subsequent pregnancies use the right to terminate a pregnancy – 77.7 percent, – quotes Airat Farrakhov. – At what age? 30-39 years (58.6 percent). After adequate discussion, approximately 11.5 percent of women decide not to terminate the pregnancy.
In addition, there is a problem with the reliability of the abortion count. The official notes that in 2004 Russia ranked first in the world in abortions: 1 million 800 thousand abortions, and in 2021 – only 517 thousand.
“The regional statistical bodies of the Ministry of Health do not receive data from private clinics,” says Airat Farrakhov. – There is a difficulty to account for the termination of pregnancy in a medical way with the help of pills.
“It is important to strengthen control over the sale of drugs for the artificial interruption of pregnancy,” stressed the deputy.
But even according to existing statistics, from 2000 to 2021, Russia lost 27 million people due to abortion. This was stated by the chairman of the Patriarchal Commission on family issues, maternity and child protection, the priest Fyodor Lukyanov. He noted that abortion “in a spiritual sense is a disaster.”
– We cannot formulate the negative attitude of the State towards abortion. We have to pay special attention to the legal status of the child. We need to reflect on this: is the human embryo a subject of law and a participant in legal relations, or an object of property rights, or an organ of the mother’s body (as qualified during an abortion)? – said the priest.
The first deputy chairman of the Control Committee of the State Duma, Dmitry Gusev, spoke about the results of a study conducted by the Public Chamber, which helped to find the reasons for women’s refusal to give birth. There are not so many of them: lack of money, housing and fear for the future of children. People are afraid that their children will not be able to enter the university, get a higher education and a well-paid profession.
– The measures that the state is taking today to increase the birth rate are necessary and correct, but they are not enough, – Dmitry Gusev believes. – Maternity capital is not enough. In addition, we discovered a paradox when calculating 10 regions of Russia that became the worst in terms of fertility. Among them are the Leningrad region, Sevastopol, Tula, Smolensk, Orel, Penza, Saratov. These are not the worst regions. Moscow is among the twenty such regions, despite the fact that the capital has the highest level of quality of life: parks, squares, beautiful playgrounds. Everything is done so that people want to have children, but they don’t. Sakhalin Oblast introduced extraordinary measures to increase the birth rate, raising the level from 0.3 percent to 2.1 in five years. If we apply these measures to the entire country, in five years the situation of fertility and abortion will change.
“Abortion changes a woman forever,” says Natalya Moskvitina, CEO of the Women for Life Charitable Foundation for Family and Maternity Support. – Therefore, it is important that there are people next to the woman who at this moment issue the correct opinion. The leader of this opinion may be a doctor. The doctor should not say to the expectant mother “Well, do we give birth or what?”. He must cheer her up. We developed a regulation for communication between a woman and a gynecologist, we launched this project in the Republic of Mordovia, and the number of abortions was reduced by 42 percent. They tell us that an abortion is easy, you won’t feel anything, you will do it and keep working. You won’t really feel anything. But you will not see the first steps either, you will not hear the word “mother”. Yes, you can live with that. But will you be happy is the big question.
