Moscow, September 5, 2025
ria.ru
A quarter of private clinics in Russia have voluntarily stopped performing abortions, according to Fr. Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Patriarchal Commission on Family Issues, Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, who spoke to RIA-Novosti.
“Already 25% of the private clinics in the Russian Federation have voluntarily refused to perform abortions. State support measures for pregnant women help reduce the number of abortions. Thanks to the Year of the Family and various measures taken to preserve the health of mothers and the lives of unborn children, 2024 saw an absolute minimum in the circulation of medical abortion drugs: medical institutions received 33% fewer than in 2023, and 46% fewer than in 2022,” Fr. Fyodor said.
The priest noted that supportive measures for birth rates begin to work when restrictive measures are introduced.
He previously reported that 87 regions of Russia have already supported various initiatives by the Russian Orthodox Church to combat abortions, such as private clinics refusing licenses to perform pregnancy terminations or laws banning coercion to have abortions.
Currently, 23 Russian regions have banned coercing women to have abortions. On September 1, relevant laws came into effect in the Kirov and Bryansk Provinces. Two additional regions are currently considering similar bans in their local legislative houses.
Coercion to abortion is defined as “actions aimed at forcing a pregnant woman to have an abortion through persuasion, offers, bribery, or deception.” Informing women about medical indications for abortion is not considered coercion.
Mordovia was the first region to adopt such a law, which came into force in August 2023. Several regions followed suit, and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called for introducing such a ban at the federal level.
According to Rosstat estimates, the number of abortions in Russia has been steadily declining since the early 1990s—by an average of 6% per year. In February, Elena Sheshko, head of the Department of Medical Care for Children, Maternity Services and Public Health at the Russian Ministry of Health, reported that the number of abortions has decreased by more than 3.5 times over the past ten years.
However, these figures are considered questionable. Current abortion statistics do not account for medical abortions performed at home, and pills for pregnancy termination can be purchased at any Russian pharmacy. Additionally, a significant portion of abortions are performed in private clinics, which do not provide accurate data on the number of procedures performed.
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