The State Duma wants to ban abortions under the MHI policy: who will have to pay for it

Irina Mishina

This bill was announced by State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov. His words are quoted by Ura.ru. He hopes for the adoption of this bill already during the autumn session. According to Milonov, the bill will involve the withdrawal of abortions from the CHI system for non-medical reasons. “I hope we will be able to introduce a bill and make another attempt to withdraw abortions from the CHI system. I want to see who will be shameless enough to oppose this bill”, - the parliamentarian said.

However, this bill was opposed by the chairman of the committee on family, motherhood and childhood, Nina Ostanina, the immediate supervisor of Vitaly Milonov. At the same time, Nina Aleksandrovna noted: “Mr. Milonov was only at two meetings of the committee during this session, where he got such news and initiatives is not clear”.

The ban on abortions under compulsory medical insurance - the beginning of the war against women?

In Russia, abortion deaths account for 25% of all maternal mortality. In Europe, no one dies from criminal abortions… “If society created normal conditions, then women would give birth. There would be no problems. Therefore, accusing a woman of killing children is unfair. There is also the fault of men, but the trouble is higher. Abortion is a problem of society, it is not a problem of women”, - said Vladimir Serov, President of the Russian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Head of the Rehabilitation Department of the Academician Kulakov Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology. Nina Ostanina, head of the State Duma committee on family, motherhood and childhood, agrees with him.

“This initiative has not yet been received by our committee, but if it does, I will be categorically against it. Termination of pregnancy is a serious operation, it should be done by doctors and specialists. And why on earth should abortion be removed from compulsory medical insurance? After all, a woman works and contributes money to the CHI fund. Covid is treated at the expense of the budget, and abortions at their own expense? There is a clear inconsistency here. This measure is all the more untimely, given that the demographic situation in our country is now critical, a special military operation is underway, and under these conditions we want to leave a woman alone with her problems? Most people go for abortions out of desperation, out of a hopeless financial situation. If the initiators of this law offered women state support - payment for pregnancy leave not by 50%, but by 100%, paid leave to care for a child up to 3 years, and then free education for a child with a guarantee of his employment - then you can was to ask women: why do you not want to give birth? I believe that such a law is another war unleashed in our country against women”, - Nina Ostanina, head of the State Duma Committee on Family, Motherhood and Childhood, told NI.

Abortion ban as a factor in the protests

Abortion is now completely banned without any medical or other indications in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Malta, the Philippines. Naturally, not a single woman will have an abortion in the territory of the Vatican.

It is known that in March 2018 in Poland, crowds of people took to the streets of Warsaw to protest against the government's plans to further tighten the legislation on abortion. Then, about 55 thousand people took part in the action, 200 non-governmental organizations signed a public appeal to the Polish authorities - it was said that their plans "endanger the health and lives of women and violate Poland's international obligations in the field of human rights."

“In the USSR, abortion was a criminal offense. They punished both the doctor and the woman who decided to have an underground abortion", - human rights activist, member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights Eva Merkacheva told NI. - But at the same time, no one is ever interested in what circumstances prompted a woman to decide on an abortion. If she had not just been banned, but would have started working with her, would have found out the reasons pushing her to do this - it would be another matter. Maybe she has no housing, three hungry children at home, her husband is unemployed. But this is of no interest to anyone, as a result, a person is simply driven into a dead end. How can MPs not see this?"

Is the growth of crime also a consequence of the ban on abortion?

If you read studies on the topic of the ban on abortion, you can find many conclusions that these bans inevitably led to an increase in juvenile delinquency after a certain time: parents are little and reluctant to deal with unwanted children. So, in 2001, the work of economists John Donoghue and Stephen Levitt The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime was published. The authors of the study were lynched for finding a link between a ban on abortion and an increase in juvenile delinquency 15 to 18 years after such a ban. Also in this study, there is an idea that the legalization of abortion reduces crime by about 50%.

Thus, it can be assumed that the ban on abortion in Russia will create the prerequisites for a surge in crime, and in the not too distant future.

Recent public opinion polls are also unequivocally against a ban on abortion. Thus, according to VTsIOM, 72% of respondents believe that abortion should not be prohibited in Russia. This point of view is not shared by 18 percent, and only 4 percent insist that this is unacceptable under any circumstances. 70% of respondents believe that abortions should not be excluded from the system of compulsory health insurance (CMI), the opposite opinion is held by 21%. As a result of the ban on abortions and their removal from the MHI system, 31% called an increase in the number of clandestine abortions, 13% - an increase in the number of homeless children.