Abortion Threatens Russia

by   Tom Strode                                                                                                                                        Vol. XXII, No. 1, January 2009

More than 64 percent of all pregnancies in Russia result in abortion, and that astonishing rate reportedly is behind the growing infertility among women of the former communist country.

The number of infertile Russian women is increasing by 200,000 to 250,000 every year, with complications from abortion the primary cause, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology said Sept. 29, according to The St. Petersburg (Russia) Times. Marina Tarasova, deputy head of the St. Petersburg Research Institute for Gynecology and Obstetrics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said there were more than 5.5 million Russian couples who were infertile at the end of 2007.

Russian citizens may receive abortions without charge at government-sponsored clinics, The Times reported. It has been recommended that abortions be made costly to obtain in order to reduce the rate.

The staggering rate of abortion brings into question the future of Russia, said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"What country can live with aborting 64% of its babies? How can such a nation survive?" Mohler wrote in his weblog Oct. 6.

"Once a nation takes the Culture of Death into its heart, what rescue is possible?"