2023-11-18 08:39:20
Published on November 18, 2023 at 09:39. / Modified on November 18, 2023 at 10:37.
Clouds are gathering over Russian women’s access to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion), a right acquired in the distant 1920s in the Soviet Union. At that time, the Russian Socialist Republic became the first state in the world to legalize abortion. But today, and probably thanks to the war in Ukraine, hardly a day goes by without political and religious leaders speaking out in favor of a toughening of the existing legislation which allows women to access an abortion on simple request until the 12th week of pregnancy.
The latest is at the initiative of Crimean senator Olga Kovitidi. This elected official from the ruling United Russia party pleaded for the criminalization of “incitement to abortion”, an offense that Russian law so far only punishes with a fine. Speaking on his Telegram channel, on November 16, the senator admitted to following the position of Metropolitan (equivalent to the bishop among the Orthodox) Tikhon of Simferopol in this matter who had recently considered that the sanction for this “crime” should be “dissuasive”. Patriarch Kirill, the highest authority in the Russian Church, also spoke in favor of the bill. In its sights, private clinics, accused of carrying out abortions at all costs, especially for commercial motivations. On November 8, he even took up his pen to ask Russian deputies to legislate so that state hospitals are the only ones authorized to perform abortions, which are strictly regulated. Private clinics in occupied Crimea took the lead by declaring the next day that they were no longer taking patients seeking abortions.
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