The problem of the abortions in Russia
An abortion as the invention of the communists:
Getting rid of the hunger problem by decreasing the number of the people who eat.
When I speak about the problem of an abortion I always remember an old Soviet slogan which you could see in every Soviet city: "The work of Lenin is alive". This work is really alive: the first communist country was the first country in the world that legalized the killing of the unborn children.
The communists had brought a lot of the terrible things into the human civilization: the new model of the economics, the new literature, new morals and new logic. According to this logic they have made a new discovery: "One can get rid of the hunger problem by decreasing the number of the people who eat. Lenin's government exteriorized this terrible invention; at first by Bolsheviks, then by Margaret Sanger and then by the birth control movements that followed.
The famous Russian writer, Ivan Bunin wrote: "The hellish secret of the Bolsheviks is to kill the sensitive... you can imagine seven murdered, but not seven hundred." After the usurpation of the power in Russia, Bolsheviks used to kill thousands and thousands of the innocent people. You could not imagine the number of people killed and the hundreds of millions of children killed by the communists and their abortionist followers in many countries.
The history of abortions in Russia:
On November 18, 1920 abortions were legalized by the communist government. At the same moment there were massacres against Christians all over the country. There were so many victims among the Christians that they think the number of martyrs was greater than in the first centuries.
We understand that at that time the Church was not able to resist against abortions. In 1943 when wide persecution of the faith had stopped, there were very few bishops and priests out of the prisons. However, at that moment the government prohibited abortions for a short time. After the death of Stalin, the communists had legalized abortions again (Khrushchev). During Khrushchev's reign in the 1950s persecution of the Churches proceeded. Thousands of Churches were closed and the priests could not preach against the abortions. After Khrushchev's era was over the same situation remained and the majority of the parishes consisted mainly of old women.
At last, in the1990s we have obtained the opportunity to openly oppose the killing of the unborn children. We have realized that during the last 70 years we have lost precious time. The consciousness of the nation had changed. The most dreadful result of the last decades was that an abortion became a normal and ordinary thing to do. The mind of the society had changed.
Everybody has a conscious. Many people hesitate before an abortion no matter what their religion or point of view on that subject might be. However, when an abortion becomes an ordinary event in the society, it is easier to overcome the internal resistance of the conscience. They start to behave themselves "as everybody else do". The number of abortions has increased and is a sign of a spiritual regression in Russia. Abortions are now a common event and are performed in the hospitals. The physicians in Russia do not have a right to refuse to do an abortion. The same medical staff that kills the unborn babies helps other women to deliver their babies. The gynecologists who believe in God leave their work and our gynecology, step by step, becomes an atheistic avocation.
The Fetal Therapy
The so-called "fetal therapy" is in use in Russia. This is a sort of cannibalism, when the parts of the body of an unborn child may be used for medical purposes. Officially an abortion is legal before 12 weeks but according to a social indication it can be done before 22 weeks. They say that it was done to get more materials for a monstrous fetal therapy. It costs a lot of money and the citizens of the countries where fetal therapy is illegal come to us for that. Probably some of those rich cannibals are famous in their own countries.
There are a lot of abortions performed in Russia. Every year 2.5 million babies are killed, but it's only according to the official statistics, which are not accurate. There are 100,000 in Moscow alone. This means that two of every three children are killed because of abortion. But the number of abortions is slowly decreasing. I am sure that this has to do with the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. In spite of that Russia is still one of the most abortionist countries. It happens not because we are cruel but because when a young lady goes to an abortionist she understands that her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother did the same. They look at abortion procedure as it would-be a tooth extraction. Sometimes you can meet a woman who had done 5 to10 abortions. This is a result of long time abortion legislation, and it happens with all the countries that legalize abortions. Only 5% of the babies in Russia are born healthy because a woman cannot give birth to a healthy child after an abortion. 25% of the couples are not fertile. Some of the experts think that the destruction of the USSR happened because Russians had become a national minority there. Decreasing of the Christian population in Russia will bring a bad result to the whole world because Russia is the largest country in Europe.
Pro-life movement in Russia
Now we have the possibility to oppose abortion. The Pro-life movement started in the beginning of the 1990s and is about 7 years old. Our organization has existed for 6 years. There are pro-life groups in about 50 regions in Russia and some in Ukraine and Belarus. Most of them are located in the large cities in the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church. The main form of work is distributing information of any kind. Our group publishes a newsletter six times a year and distributes information through all possible ways. Such a form of consulting the women who are going to do an abortion is in wide use. Usually we distribute leaflets and brochures that help the gynecologists to speak with the pregnant women, give lectures to the teenagers about an abortion, Christian marriage and the danger of premarital sex.
Working in the defense of life we face some difficulties. The main one is mentioned above: an abortion became a normal thing in Russia. It is a great barrier in the work. The next trouble for us is lack of sympathy from physicians, who look negatively at the anti-abortion activity. However the most danger for life in Russia became:
The Russian Planned Parenthood association.
We are anxious about activity of the Planned Parenthood in Russia. Our country is in a great demographic crisis and we look at this activity as the most destructive organization in Russia, which diminishes our population. It looks very cynical in Russia because we are a people who lost 20 million victims during World War II and our demographic crisis is connected with our losses in that war. It means that International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) continues the work unfinished by the Nazis. This fact increases anti-American and anti-Western views here.
Some call what is happening a sexual revolution. That is a good comparison because there is a connection between sexual and communist revolutions.
Take a notice.
During the French Revolution abortions were legalized.
It is well known that revolutionaries who suffused Russia with blood upheld a very liberal view on sexuality. They even refused to recognize marriage as the part of human nature.
According to an original communist's teaching, marriage should disappear in the future. They have forgotten this dogma but if you compare the practice of the sexual and communist revolutionaries you will find the similarity.
Like the communists they are possessed by the idea of a global change of the world and the whole society including destroying of the moral, traditional and the religious values.
Some Soviet high-level functionaries now actively support the Planned Parenthood Federation in Russia. They are: the president of the Russian Planned Parenthood Association V.I. Kulakov, the leader of the Russian feminist movement E.F. Lakhova, Vaganov, Kulakov V.I., Igor Kon and the others.
A presenter of the famous sexological antichristian newscast in Moscow is Helen Khanga, a granddaughter of the Black American communist who came to the Soviet Union from USA to built communism there.
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), a crazy Marxist and preacher of the sexual revolution supposed that traditional sexual morality needs to be reconsidered and a family should be out of the picture as the source of a neurosis and oppression of the sexuality.
Proof. Igor Kon is an active member of the movement for homosexual rights, the "scientific" director of sex education programs made his scientific career on the Marxist philosophy.
If you look back in history you will find that the producing of condoms began with an order from the director of Soviet Secret policy in 1939, who was Stalin's main butcher.
The old links of those communists helped Planned Parenthood to penetrate into the state health organization and to submit them to the goals of Planned Parenthood. It happens often that state bureaucrats combined being members of Planned Parenthood and worked in state hospitals. Today Russian Planned Parenthood has 52 brunches all over the country.
Quickly, they lobbied for receiving the state's money and for taxpayers to feed them. Last year corporate work of pro-life organizations enforced our Parliament to refuse to give money to Planned Parenthood. It means that the pro-life movement has become influential in our country.
In spite of some success we are under pressure from PP and the feminists. The leader of the Russian feminists is familiar to President Yeltzin and they are influential in our country. They distribute absurd rumors about the pro-life movement; that we kill physicians, that we receive money from abroad, and stop women from abortions for the sake of selling their children. Some say that our propaganda stimulates women to commit suicide.
The cooperation between the Russian and the foreign pro-life movements.
1) As our movement is younger than yours you may have some useful experience that can be introduced in Russia. But our situation is so different and we should conform your experience to the Russian situation.
2) The most important side of the cooperation is information exchange. During the last years there were written a lot of books, which should be translated into Russian. For example, many of our physicians know nothing about the side effects of the Pills because their information comes through the ideological filters of the IPPF, Procter & Gamble, and Sharing. Deficiency of true information leads to the wide use of them, even for the teenagers without parents' permission. You help us a lot by sending the information, booklets, magazines etc.
It's very important for us to know the truth about the PP in the West. They developed their anti-life activity in a time when our currency is still weak and dollars give them the possibility to boo everything. They always advertise on their western would-be good results. We do need the true information on the real results of their negative work.
Some think that the pro-life movement should receive some financial help from abroad. It doesn't seem to be right because you do not have spare money and the money will not be enough for such a big country as Russia is. Every country should decide its problems with its own resources. The work of our center is not based on any kind of external help.
The perspectives of the pro-life movement in Russia
Now the number of the pro-lifers is slowly but constantly growing, in spite of that there are no perspectives to ban abortions now. We want to remove social indications and to stop government policy on the family planning.
As some groups are not united into the whole movement, we should unite into the one movement.
The very important area of the work is translation of the literature, common conferences and the other ways of the informational exchange.
Priest Maxim Oboukhov
Director of educational center "Zhizn" (Life)
Russia, Moscow
March 1999