Abortion restrictions in Russia spark outrage as the country takes a conservative turn

TALLINN, Estonia — Despite its last-minute scheduling, the meeting at a bookstore in Russia’s westernmost city of Kaliningrad still drew about 60 people, with many outraged by a lawmaker’s efforts to ban abortions in local private clinics. “They don’t understand the point.” State clinics in one region referred women to a priest before getting an abortion. To Irina Volynets, an abortion opponent and children’s rights ombudswoman in the Tatarstan region, “it gives hope that this procedure will be taken out of private clinics” eventually. “It’s important to understand that the pressure on women will be growing” even in the absence of a total ban, said Kaliningrad psychotherapist and activist Lina Zharin, who helped organize the recent bookstore meeting. A document obtained by AP and cited by other media outlines language doctors are told to use, including saying pregnancy is “a beautiful and natural condition for every woman,” while an abortion is “harmful to your health and a risk of developing complications.” Natalya Moskvitina, founder of Women For Life, which aids women who decide against abortion, said she helped develop the instructions and is introducing similar scripts for doctors in several regions.