Ekaterina Medvedko The first day of June marked the Day of Protection of Children in Russia. In this regard, it is impossible not to think once more of the most vulnerable and defenseless social group—the unborn children. It’s those children whose lives remain practically unprotected at the legislative level. I would like to especially mention those people, who, in their everyday work, advocate the right to be born and live for those who have just begun their lives in their mother’s womb. They are true fighters. Except that the war they fight is a quiet one, and goes virtually unnoticed. They fight on an invisible front line. As F.M. Dostoevsky put it, “God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.” In this battle, such people are true fellow workers of God, His soldiers. They are psychologists of pre-abortion counseling.
Ekaterina Vasilievna Medvedko is a medical clinical psychologist who works at a women’s health clinic at the polyclinic number seventy-one in Kolpino (St. Petersburg). Working in crisis pregnancy counseling since 2013, she does it with great love. In her interview, Ekaterina Vasilievna spoke about her work and its specifics, major difficulties, as well as what helps her and what gives strength in such challenging, yet crucial ministry.
—Could you tell us about yourself?
—I’m a medical clinical psychologist. I have nineteen years of overall experience, more than fourteen years of them as a medical clinical psychologist. And I have worked about the same amount time as a pre-abortion counseling psychologist. I came here after having worked at the pediatric service of the polyclinic number fifty-one. While there, I was a part of the adolescent care team, which also included a neurologist. It was really amazing to work there and I liked everything. I became friends with Natalya Vitalievna Andreeva, the psychologist at the women’s health clinic. We studied together at the department of St. Petersburg Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education. Our professors were Edmond Georgievich Eidemiller and Igor Valerievich Dobryakov. The latter was our teacher in pre-abortion counseling and perinatal psychology. He’s a really well-known specialist. Then, there was also Irina Mikhailovna Nikolskaya. These people were the backbone of the department of child psychiatry in the Academy. Natalia Vitalievna and I were both residents of Kolpino, but we never knew each other before. So, we quickly became friends. Occasionally, we’d attend open house days at the department of child psychiatry. A youth consultation was located in a wing next to our women’s care clinic. Sadly, Natalia Vitalievna passed away from cancer in 2013. That’s when I decided to transfer from the children’s clinic to this center. Overall, the school of thought was the same here and practically the same area of work—teenagers, teenage pregnancy, and pregnant women. It was only when I began my work here that I was told I’d have to work with pregnant women who were about to choose—to keep their baby or have abortion.
“Two Scale Pans,” a book by Oksana Kutsenko —What were the major challenges you have encountered at the very beginning of your work?
—We had nothing when we began our practice. We had neither handouts, nor mock-ups. Nowadays, we feel like we are rich: we’ve got mock-ups from the “Life” center, handouts and small diaries for pregnant women… We have it all here now. But back then there was none of that! I had to search far and wide for some literature. I am very grateful to Oksana Kutsenko. She wrote a book called Two Scale Pans. It’s a great book that helped me to adapt to this work. It offered an in-depth knowledge about consciousness and how it works. Because we deal with crisis intervention; women are going through non-normative crisis. There is the so-called normative crisis, like planned children or marriage. And then, there is non-normative life event when you get pregnant, but you don’t know what to do with it: “But I didn’t plan to get pregnant!” This is about crisis work, so this book really helped me.
What challenges did we encounter? We didn’t know where to direct the pregnant women. Say, you are working with a patient, she agrees to save the pregnancy, but she hasn’t the finances to support herself. It’s good that they receive financial support now. But back then, in 2013, there were no handouts. So yes, it was really tough. We didn’t know how to guide or where to direct women. Not simply to send her somewhere, but to send her to a place I knew she’d definitely find help. So, our Valentina Yakovlevna, who headed “The Life” Center, has offered assistance to us. How did I get to know her? We have Alla Pikina—the wife of one of our priests. She works as a midwife in our center. She suggested to me one day: let’s direct them to “The Life” Center. We visited their center and offered webinars and events. Valentina Yakovlevna asked to let her know every time I was about to direct patients to their center. They actually had options on hand to offer assistance to them. Women who refused to keep the pregnancy in our center would come there—and agree to have a baby as the result. Their center supervised women for up to three years.
Currently, Nadezhda Vasilievna Segal heads “The Life” Center. I always remain in contact with the center’s psychologist Larisa Alexandrovna. They have really talented specialists who offer every possible assistance to their patients. But they had even more opportunities in the past. In some cases, we gather assistance ourselves. We work together with the Center for Assistance to Family and Children and the organization called “The Stork on the Roof,” they also offer help, to the best of their capacity, to those women who for some reason can’t receive government assistance. For example, a girl from another city comes to study, but then she gets pregnant and needs assistance. Since she isn’t registered as a resident of St. Petersburg, she cannot apply for payments there. At the same time, she can’t leave for her hometown either, since she’s a student and has to work, too. But, frankly speaking, I don’t see it getting any easier for us these days. Despite the fact that we have all kinds of mock-ups and so much more.
—What is the main challenge for you as a psychologist in your communication with a pregnant woman?
—Not to judge. I understand that it is a woman’s choice. But there, inside her womb, is a living person. So, it’s really, really hard. Because, on the one hand, the Lord gave us all free will, yet legislation still allows abortions. On the other hand, we all understand that this is a murder, one way or another.
—Can you tell us what mistakes must be avoided in a conversation with the crisis-pregnant woman? What should you absolutely avoid saying to her?
—You should in no case condemn her and impose your opinion. You ought to act carefully so as not to cause aggression in her. It is important to understand why she is having an abortion and how she treats herself as a woman. Maybe she has already had so many abortions and she’s become so traumatized that she no longer considers her child as a child. So, abortion for her is just another method of contraception. It is important to understand what I can say to her, plus I have to figure out the underlying reason—is it because of her or the people around her, far and near. Maybe it isn’t common for women in their immediate circle to give birth, so we need to work with this. We have to understand where to start.
—What else you shouldn’t say?
—“Go have an abortion, it’s your decision.” We should never say such things. Never, under any circumstances. What we must do is to shatter her attitude towards herself and the situation, to see and suggest various options, thus knocking down the established opinion that a baby in her womb is “merely a conglomeration of cells” or “a piece of biological mass.” I have single beads that are signed, “I’m 8 weeks old.” After a counseling session, I always give one to a woman. As for what she is going to do with it is her own business. But it anchors her back to the conversation we’ve just had with her. Maybe she’ll put it in her pocket. Or maybe, upon leaving my office, she’ll just throw it away. But if she puts it in her pocket, then it will make her think about it, anytime she touches it there, lying hidden in her pocket. She’ll come back to it no matter what.
—I want to ask you about guilt. It’s quite fashionable among psychologists, especially the secular ones, to say that you shouldn’t pull the guilt card. Abortion advocates also say: Why put the blame on a woman if she is already making a difficult decision. But what if guilt and unwillingness to become a murderer can stop a woman from taking this step?
—No, it won’t. You see, when such a situation arises, a woman is overcome with a storm of feelings. And it isn’t a feeling of guilt—it would be lopsided to think this way. Imagine: A woman has just learned that she is pregnant. You wouldn’t find a woman who goes for an abortion while having a normal relationship with the father of the child. When he participates in her life in one way or another, remains faithful to her, and is willing to participate in the life of a child and the woman knows it—she won’t have an abortion. There is a whole spectrum of problems there: self-attitude and attitude to her partner. So, it isn’t just guilt. As for those women who have a lot of abortions, they basically no longer even understand what their feelings are. They rush like mad horses.
Lessons at classes for future dads
—So, it’s almost like having a tooth pulled for them…
—Yes. This woman doesn’t think anything of guilt. She has been so shattered from inside that she has no clue what she’s doing or how she’s feeling. So, when you hit a nerve deep inside her soul, you uncover so many things. In particular, it’s massive grief that requires time to work off, understand and grieve over—it’s a lot of things. Thus, it is inappropriate to talk about pulling a guilt card here; the woman herself knows deep inside how messed up she is.
And of course I’m never going to say to her, “You’re a murderer, look what you’re doing!”
And of course I’m never going to say to her, “You’re a murderer, look what you’re doing!” It will only scare her off and she will never ever go see a psychologist. As for me, if I call her a “murderer” and aggressively and ultimately blame her for getting pregnant and going for an abortion, I will never ever have any chance to set any framework for her to stop having abortions. We should exercise extreme care when placing such anchors. You can tell about the consequences and graphically show everything using the mock-up model: here, this is your child. We can accentuate the fact that this is not a fetus, but “your child”—on every mock-up. Give her that bean and say, “This is your child.” So that in her mind a fetus turns from a “bunch of cells” into a person. Humanization—this is what makes them think. It won’t work if a woman simply walks around and looks at other pregnant women and babies. Mentally, she will “brush off” half of them. But during our consultation we set up a mental barrier: look, this is what is going to happen after the abortion. And even if a woman still undergoes abortion, she will suffer from post-abortion syndrome. Everyone suffers from it, but at various times. She comes to an understanding: Oh my, so that’s what the psychologist was telling me about. Next time around, she will think twice whether to have another abortion or not. After all, these women do care about their health, including psychological health. Just as they think of the various consequences of abortion, like hormonal diseases. We should tell them that there are consequences. It’s not just like having a tooth pulled. Your baby’s right there. He is there already! So, it’s up to you what you are going to do with him as his mother. The child is already there.
There is your baby there. He’s already there! As for what you are going to do with him, it’s up to you. But that child is already there
Another question is in what state you will have him. Alive or dead is for you to decide.
—Is it true that the average woman who comes to have an abortion is a married mother with two kids?
—No.
—Who is most likely to plan to undergo abortion today?
—We don’t have such a thing these days, when some are doing it more often and others less often.
—Or, like it was previously believed that mostly young girls have an abortion…
—No, contraception is quite common today. And adolescent girls are actually the ones who give birth, because they have President Putin’s support program, and not only that. The girls who give birth at a young age are the ones who have families, and their mothers also gave birth early. If their mothers support them, then this is not a problem. But sometimes mothers won’t support their daughters. Unfortunately, I don’t see these pregnant young women in my office. Why? Because they choose to have medical abortions. With these types of abortions, no one sends them to me. I see only those who have more than six weeks of gestation.
—What women undergo abortions more often?
—There are women who have no husbands or whose husbands are fighting at the SMO. Say, her husband comes home from the frontlines, she gets pregnant, and her husband then returns to the front. Next, there are women who have no stable partner or who have no confidence in their current one. This is not about age, but more about personality traits and the situation the women find themselves in.
—What do you say to a woman who claims she already has child or two and has no plans to have more?
—I look at her situation and build my conversation based on that. I also try to shift the emphasis to the fact that if she has a ladleful of soup, she’ll surely have another two. Then, there is the shared responsibility of children—older ones caring for the younger ones. Children grow better in larger families and they get more socialization. Perhaps a woman is worried that her children a year apart in age will fight. To that I reply: But at least your eldest will have another brother or sister. In the future, they will be able to help each other. Say, they have to move heavy furniture or borrow money; that’s when siblings can come to each other’s rescue. Women don’t think about it, being unable to see it in perspective. We must show them what will happen in the long term. So that they stop focusing on things at this particular point in time when she is pregnant and her plans to have an abortion, but suggest that she looks at the same situation in five, ten, or twenty years.
This year, I’ve received some really exciting news: from now on, by virtue of the law, the effectiveness of medical doctors will depend on the number of women they have dissuaded from having an abortion. Before that, I was killing myself all alone in this work only to later rush to my priest and complain: “Batiushka, forgive me,” I’d say, “I judge them and I have no idea what to do, it just blows my mind! You know, I can say something wrong, and the woman will go and have an abortion as the result…” So, it’s gotten easier now, because I motivate women in my office, while doctors motivate them in their offices, as well. This way I can tell that my effort won’t go to waste. A regular doctor and I work together on pregnancy maintenance. Besides, the doctor is now professionally interested in helping a woman to keep her child.
—I see that your women’s care clinic has a lot of posters in defense of children before birth…
—We’ve had them for a long time already. I have been working here since 2013, so that was when I first had posters added everywhere I could, in addition to handouts. We draw attention to the problem in every possible way. We also collected signatures against abortion. Nowadays, we have our own Telegram channel where we share educational information. It is called “Kolpino Prenatal Classes” (https://t.me/shkolamamkolpino). We show our colleague, a mother of six, and tell how she works two jobs, brings up six children, but she still manages to keep things in balance. We do all the events together. Some can sit idle with just one child, but others will remain wildly active having all five.
To be continued…
