Russia’s Primorye Region Outlaws ‘Coercion’ Into Abortion

Lawmakers in Russia’s Far East Primorye region on Wednesday passed a law outlawing the act of “coercing” women into having an abortion, a move that comes as federal lawmakers debate a bill to ban the so-called “childfree movement.”

The new law defines “coercion” into abortion as actions such as persuasion, bribery, deceit, blackmail or workplace pressure that compel women to terminate a pregnancy. It imposes administrative fines on public sector workers and institutions ranging from 5,000 to 100,000 rubles ($54 to nearly $1,100).

Doctors who inform a woman about medical conditions that would require her to have an abortion would not face criminal liability under the law.

Yury Melnikov, who is the Primorye region’s human rights commissioner and the bill’s author, said the law would help “prevent the spread of ideas and values alien to the Russian people and destructive to society,” citing concerns about “selfishness, permissiveness, immorality and the denial of natural [reproductive] continuation.”

Primorye is now the 10th region in Russia to implement such a ban, according to the news website Mediazona.

Meanwhile, around 500 private clinics across 70 Russian regions have stopped offering abortion services in what authorities call a “voluntary” initiative, backed by Russia’s Health Ministry.

Concerns over reproductive rights in Russia have grown amid government efforts to increase birth rates in response to the country’s ongoing demographic crisis, caused in part by an aging population, Covid-19 deaths during the pandemic, mass emigration and the war in Ukraine.