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After decades of abortion, a pro-life detour ... in Russia

Charlie Butts   ( Thursday, February 06, 2014

Russia, which used to lead the world in abortions, is now taking drastic action to curb its falling population rate.

At one point in its history, Russia promoted abortion as birth control, including putting signs in public transportation recommending it. In fact, 50 to 60 years ago the old Soviet Union was estimated to have some of the highest abortion rates in the world – estimates were about 6 to 7 million per year. According to one researcher, it's likely the number of annual abortions exceeded the number of live births.

But Joseph Meaney of Human Life International, who is currently in Rome, tells OneNewsNow that Russia is now awakening to the costs associated with such liberal abortion policies.

Meaney, Joseph (HLI)"The sad thing is that Russia is basically on a death spiral heading down in terms of their population," he explains. "They definitely do need to promote families – and they need to save many, many lives. There's kind of a double-whammy there in terms of people dying young and then nobody's being born."

The result is an aging Russian population with a reduced number of people to fill the labor market and fewer people to support the elderly.

In an attempt to remedy that situation, many countries in Europe have imported labor from Muslim-dominated countries. Russia, however, is taking a different turn. According to Meaney, Russia has now passed a law banning advertising for abortions.

"... One of the interesting things is they're now wanting to put in most of their hospitals some pro-life counseling as opposed to basically allowing people to just go straight in for abortions," he adds.

Meaney agrees that the situation in Russia ought to be a signal to the rest of the world to turn away from abortion.

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