Mordovia, a Russian region situated in the centre of the European part of the country, has adopted a law to ban compelling women to artificially terminate pregnancies, the regional parliament announced.
The “abortion coercion”, as the lawmakers put it, means forcing women to do this “through persuasion, proposals, bribery, deception, and making other demands”. This also applies to approaching the woman’s close relatives with the same intentions.
At the same time, doctors who inform a pregnant woman about medical conditions that warrant an abortion are not considered to be “coercing” women according to the document.
“The propaganda of artificial termination of pregnancy and coercing to have an induced abortion are recognised as threats to family, fatherhood, motherhood, and childhood in Mordovia,” the document reads.
Update
Co-author of the document Natalya Moskvitina, head of the Women for Life foundation and member of the regional Civic Chamber, spoke to Novaya-Europe to explain that the “propaganda ban” was removed from the agenda during the second reading and was not adopted by the regional legislature.
“The ban on propaganda [of abortions] can only be implemented on the federal level. The second reading revealed that the bill on the ban of propaganda cannot be accepted for the consideration by the prosecution,” she said.
Mordovia, as lawmakers claim, opposes the promotion of “destructive ideologies, implanting a system of ideas and values that is alien to the Russian nation and is destructive to Russia’s society, including the cultivation of selfishness, permissiveness, immorality, denial of the natural continuation of life, and the value of having many children”.
The explanatory note says that the issue of abortions “cannot be described as a problem of the woman’s personal reluctance to have children or not being able to have a baby at this time”.
“We have to recognise that women are not able now to make a decision about whether to have children independently and consciously, while having all the necessary information:
the existing information and culture environment imposes abortion on women as an acceptable, accessible, and easy solution to the problems or, even beyond that, a right,” the lawmakers stressed.
From the explanatory note
The cult of consumptionism, aggressive demands for “self-realisation”, mockery of family values, motherhood, a woman’s desire to bear and raise children in conjunction with the cult of sex pushing the attitudes to abortion on girls and women as a necessary option for a modern person.
For men, abortion also becomes an opportunity not to bear natural responsibilities for their actions, not to treat relationships with women he engages in seriously, and have somewhat of a retreat option.
Mediazona reports that fines for citizens will stand between 5,000 and 10,000 rubles (€49-98), while foreigners will face double that and will be potentially expelled from the country. Officials can be slapped with 25,000-50,000 ruble (€244-488) fines, and legal entities will be liable for 100,000-200,000 ruble (€975-1,950) fines.