More Abortions Than Births in Russia

Here is evidence of cultural disaster: Russians, whose lives are shorter and poorer than they were under communism, have more abortions than births to avoid the costs of raising children, Bloomberg.com reported Tuesday quoting the country’s highest-ranking obstetrician. About 1.6 million women had an abortion last year, a fifth of them under the age of 18, and about 1.5 million gave birth, said Vladimir Kulakov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. “Many more” abortions weren’t reported. [See Moscow News]
In 1991, the International Herald Tribune reported: “An entrenched ‘abortion culture’ in Russia and Eastern Europe has outlived the collapse of communism by more than a decade.” More from the article: The most startling statistics come from Russia, where abortion is used more than anywhere else in Europe — measured both in absolute terms and per capita. According to the World Health Organization, Russian women in 1990 registered 1,971 abortions for every 1,000 live births — or roughly two abortions for every childbirth. A decade later, the ratio stubbornly remains at 1,696 abortions per 1,000 births.