Abortion is very common in Russia – the first country to have legalised it in 1920. However, yesterday, in Moscow, over 1,000 people demonstrated for it to be banned. The demonstrators collected signatures for an anti-abortion petition, which was signed last September by the Head of the Orthodox Church and several other key figures (see Une pétition pour interdire l’avortement en Russie – a petition to ban abortion in Russia).
In 2015, Elena Mizoulina, a conservative MP, put forward a draft law banning abortions in private clinics and restricting them to public establishments in cases where the pregnant woman’s life was known to be at risk. The draft law was rejected and deemed “extremist” by the President of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament.
Le Figaro avec AFP, 24/10/2016.