Russia’s population has suffered more from abortion than it did from its losses during World War II, a Russian Orthodox official in charge of family affairs has said.
Russia legalized abortion in 1955 and has the second-highest abortion rate in the world after China. While Russia’s anti-abortion movement has largely failed to change the law, it has gained momentum in recent years, spurred by the rise of the Orthodox Church as a powerful political force.
“The mass murder of Russian children by Russian people is worse than the Holocaust,” Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, who heads a patriarchal commission for children’s and mother’s rights, was quoted as saying by Interfax on Thursday.
Comparing abortions to wartime casualties at a conference on reproductive rights, Smirnov said: “How many have we killed ourselves? More than in World War II.”
An estimated 27 million Soviet troops and civilians were killed between 1941 and 1945 in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War.