Lessons on abortion from Russia

THE EDITOR: The number of abortions in Russia has fallen by an astonishing 45 percent in just nine years, 1992-2001. In those same years, Russian women have gained access to modern contraceptives for the first time (Washington Post, February 22).

Use of the pill rose from 12 percent in 1988 to 25 percent by 1997. And reliance on IUDs went from 11 percent in 1988 to 20 percent by 1994. The message is very clear: one way to reduce abortions is to improve access to and knowledge of modern contraceptive methods. Those who oppose modern contraceptives are, intentionally or not, contributing to unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Abortion has been legal in Russia since 1920, except for the Stalinist era, 1936-55, when he made it illegal in an attempt to promote population growth. Abortion became the standard method of fertility regulation in the Soviet Union. Even with the decline in abortions, the average Russian woman has 1.7 abortions for every live birth. One sad legacy of this reliance on abortion is that 13 percent of married couples are infertile and three out of every four cases is attributed to a botched abortion. In the absence of legal abortion that could be properly monitored, we have no idea of the extent to which the substantial infertility here is rooted in our widespread practice of unsafe and unregulated abortions. If we were truly interested in being pro-life, we would learn from the Russian experience by making abortion legal and setting in place the mechanisms for ensuring the proper standards and methods for monitoring that service as we do for other medical care.

JACQUIE BURGESS
ASPIRE