Abortion Sovereignty: How Russia’s anti-abortion drive differs from the conservative shift in the West

The anti-abortion campaign and repressive federalism

Last week, the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly formally adopted a law banning 'inducement to terminate pregnancy' and introduced fines for violations, according to Fontanka. The first such regional law was passed in Mordovia in August 2023; by March of this year, according to the BBC Russian Service, 20 more Russian regions, as well as annexed Crimea, had followed suit. In April, a similar law was adopted in the Ryazan region, and now, in Russia’s second capital.

This is a new trend, but not the first time that a repressive legislative initiative has been introduced not at the federal level, but through regional parliaments. The same model was used in recent years for regional bans on certain types of employment for migrants. (Incidentally, from 2006 to 2012, more than ten regional parliaments adopted laws banning 'LGBT propaganda' before it was enshrined in federal law in 2013.) In the case of abortion, this tactic not only allows the authorities to present the new measures as 'local', bottom-up initiatives, but also serves to dilute potential social discontent, gradually shrinking access to abortion and 'normalising' new social norms and rules for the population. However, the regional laws banning abortion propaganda are virtually identical, leaving no doubt about the centralised nature of the campaign (the only region to reject the law, incidentally, was the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug). Violations of the ban on ‘inciting abortion’ are punishable by fines: for individuals, ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 roubles; fines for officials and legal entities vary from region to region, with the highest set in annexed Crimea (from 200,000 to 500,000 roubles).

Russia’s anti-abortion campaign has increasingly taken the shape of a near-total effort that combines administrative pressure and moral-psychological coercion. Authorities exert significant pressure on both private and public clinics to reduce abortion access, according to the aforementioned BBC Russian Service article. An analysis of Roszdravnadzor’s licence registry showed that in Tver Region, Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Tuva, and Chukotka, there are no private clinics licensed to perform abortions at all. Very low availability of abortion services has also been recorded in Belgorod, Kursk, and Saratov regions, Adygea, and the Stavropol Territory. In state-run institutions, women face delays and moral pressure. This policy has resulted in the emergence of 'abortion geography' and 'abortion tourism', exacerbating regional and class inequality in access to abortion, as noted by the BBC Russian Service.

Abortion restriction has long been a staple of socially conservative policy. The course towards 'traditional values' was first declared by Vladimir Putin in his 2012 presidential address, after his controversial return to the presidency amidst mass protests. Yet until the late 2010s, official conservatism largely took the form of promoting and sponsoring various public and state initiatives, without gaining substantial popular traction. Research showed a modest rise in conservative sentiment in Russia after the annexation of Crimea, riding a wave of 'Crimean euphoria', but by the late 2010s, these attitudes had again declined. Surveys focused on shifting value orientations indicated a rise in individualism and a narrowing of traditionalist views (→ Re:Russia: The Conservativism Clinch).

By the early 2020s, the turn toward traditional values had become increasingly repressive. Following the war launched by the Kremlin in Ukraine, levels of repression rose sharply, and social ultraconservatism became a key component of the de facto official ideology of 'anti-Westernism'. This transformation into state doctrine was formalised in November 2022 by a presidential decree on the 'Foundations of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values'. Within this framework, the persecution of homosexuality under the banner of combating 'LGBT propaganda' has become the flagship marker of repressive conservatism. The fight against abortion is part of the same ideological package, albeit with a somewhat lower degree of repression. In the Third Reich, these two campaigns were united under the Imperial Bureau for the Combatting of Homosexuality and Abortion.

What the polls say: from Northern to Southern Europe

In reality, Russia is far from being a conservative country and demonstrates a high level of tolerance towards abortion. According to surveys by FOM, the proportion of those who support a total ban on abortion increased from 11% in 2016 to 21% by the end of 2023. At the same time, 26% of Russians in the most recent poll stated that abortion should be permitted in all cases, while 43% said it should be allowed 'only in certain cases' (such as a threat to the mother’s life, foetal abnormalities, or rape; 20% considered severe financial hardship a sufficient reason). Ten years ago, the balance was 36% in favour of full access versus 40% supporting limited access.

The 10-percentage-point decline in the share of those supporting unrestricted access to abortion is likely explained by a shift in the public atmosphere surrounding the issue. In the earlier, more 'liberal' period, it was easier for people to voice support for abortion rights, whereas opponents did not feel external validation for their views. Notably, while the first group shrank by 10 percentage points, the proportion of those supporting restrictions on abortion increased by only 3 points, and the share of respondents who found it difficult to express a clear opinion rose from 24% to 31% (absorbing part of the former pro-choice cohort). In contrast, when asked directly about supporting a ban on abortion, the proportion of 'undecided' respondents decreased somewhat, suggesting the opposite dynamic: a revealing of previously unexpressed anti-abortion sentiment.

However, even a 10-point increase in opposition to abortion, as recorded by the FOM survey, appears in a comparative perspective more like a process of 'normalisation', i.e. a shift from high tolerance to more average global levels. Ten years ago, Russian public opinion resembled that of Northern Europe more than Eastern Europe.

By way of comparison, in the United States in 2024, according to a Pew Research Center (PRC) survey, 36% believed abortion should be illegal in all or almost all cases (57% of Republicans and 14% of Democrats), whereas between 2013 and 2017 that figure averaged around 40%. In the aforementioned Northern Europe and in Germany, just over 10% hold this view, according to a global PRC survey covering 27 countries. In Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece), the figure is around 20%. In liberal parts of Asia (Australia, Japan, Taiwan) this is roughly the same. In Catholic Poland, where a de facto abortion ban has been in place since 1993, this figure is 36%, and in Hong Kong, Israel, and Argentina, over 40%. In South Africa, Mexico, and Vietnam — over 50%. In Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, and Nigeria, this figure is between 70% and 90%. Russia’s result remains below the median (30%) of the 27 countries surveyed by PRC.

The same is true of data from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey (WVS, 2017–2022; Russian data was collected in 2017). In this survey, 26% of Russians stated that abortion is 'never justifiable', which is noticeably below the global average and median (36%) across the 93 countries included. Among EU countries, a higher share of such responses was recorded in Croatia and Poland (both 39%), while comparable levels were found in Portugal (26%), Greece (25%), Hungary (24%), and Italy (22%). At the same time, in other Orthodox-majority countries, rejection of abortion is significantly higher than in Russia. Only Bulgaria and Greece show similar levels of tolerance (21% and 25% respectively), while in others rejection is much greater: 70% in Georgia, 57% in Armenia, 48% in Romania and Cyprus, 44% in Montenegro, 42% in North Macedonia, and 33% in Serbia. The closest post-Soviet comparators to Russia are Ukraine (27%) and Belarus (28%).

World Values Survey 7: Top 10 countries with the highest intolerance towards abortion, % of those surveyed

World Values Survey 7: Top 10 countries with the lowest intolerance towards abortion, % of those surveyed

World Values Survey 7: Russia and countries with similar levels of intolerance towards abortion, % of those surveyed

Earlier waves of the WVS surveys in Russia yielded similar figures: in the fifth wave (2006), 30% of Russians considered abortion completely unacceptable, while in the sixth wave (2011) it was 24%. Moreover, when respondents were grouped by their level of tolerance towards abortion, the low-tolerance group shrank from 45% in 2006 to 41% in 2017, while the high-tolerance group grew from 20% to 28%. However, even if some shift towards reduced tolerance has taken place over the subsequent six years, as suggested by the FOM survey, achieving further progress in this direction will not be easy for the Russian authorities. Comparative data clearly show that a further decline in tolerance towards abortion is directly linked to the level of religiosity in society. In Russia, as outlined in our recent review, actual religiosity remains extremely low despite top-down pressure, with widespread cultural Orthodox identity and declarative Orthodoxy (→ Re:Russia: Declarative Orthodoxy). Therefore, increased pressure and heightened repression around abortion and its 'promotion' are more likely to reinforce the effects of 'preference falsification' and the 'spiral of silence' in surveys and public discourse, rather than lead to genuine changes in opinion.

One way or another, it can be argued that at the moment there is still a fairly broad consensus on the ‘normality’ of abortion in Russia. In a survey conducted by the Russian Field project in December 2023, 67% of respondents said they would not support a ban on abortions in Russia, while 61% of FOM respondents were against removing abortion services from the state-funded healthcare system (OMS).

‘Saving the nation’: counter-modernisation statism

It is well known among researchers that crackdowns on abortion may reduce the number of abortions, but do not lead to increased birth rates. This is, in fact, easy to verify by looking at Rosstat data on abortion and birth trends in Russia. The number of abortions has steadily declined throughout the post-Soviet period, largely due to increased access to contraception (a detailed and in-depth review of abortion statistics in Russia was recently published by the project ‘To Be Precise’). Over the past 20 years alone, the annual number of abortions has fallen 3.5 times (from 1.8 million to 0.5 million cases). At the same time, the birth rate dynamics have shown no correlation with the continuous decline in abortions, instead reflecting the influence of other, more significant factors, most notably the 'demographic waves' rooted in the aftermath of the Second World War. These waves, however, are further shaped by secondary social 'variables'.

Abortion and birth rate trends in Russia, 2003–2023

In particular, as demographers have noted, the law on maternity capital had a certain positive effect. At the same time, research by the Higher School of Economics (HSE) showed that by mid-2023, around a third of Russians who had planned to become parents before the war had postponed or completely abandoned those plans, citing in most cases a deterioration in 'external environment' factors (→ Re:Russia: Depopulation and Occupation). Overall, research on gender relations in post-socialist countries indicates that over the past 10–15 years, a kind of consensus has emerged in Russia around responsible marital and parental behaviour, which broadly mirrors the situation in prosperous Western societies. Women tend to view child-rearing primarily as their personal responsibility, which implies a thoughtful and strategic approach to pregnancy and childbirth. Naturally, this strategy is more likely to be followed by women from groups with at least a stable average income by Russian standards. But in general, studies suggest that family planning and childbearing have become matters of individual aspiration and responsibility.

However, patterns of 'family' behaviour, birth rates, and attitudes toward abortion vary significantly across regions. The outlet ‘To Be Precise’ analysed data on births, contraception, and abortions across Russian regions and found that ethnic regions of the North Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia), as well as Tuva and Kalmykia, remain much more traditional in these matters. Elements of a traditional way of life are more strongly preserved here: women typically have two to three children and give birth to their first child earlier than anywhere else in the country (at 23–25 years old), and abortions are rarely performed. That said, the stimulating effect of state payments is also greater in these regions due to widespread poverty.

Research shows, however, that even in these regions (as in Russia overall) there is a significant generational divide in attitudes towards gender roles, marriage, and reproductive strategies. Although younger and middle generations profess loyalty to the traditional way of life, their actual marital and reproductive behaviour adheres much more to liberal norms: for them, priorities in their twenties include education rather than childbearing, and they prefer to choose partners independently, and so on.

Interestingly, the next group of regions with higher fertility rates per woman consists of the wealthiest ones: the Yamalo-Nenets and Nenets Autonomous Okrugs, Sakhalin and Tyumen regions. In general, having two children is more common among citizens who feel materially secure in the medium term.

Thus, despite notable regional disparities, over the past 25 years Russia has followed a modernising trend in the evolution of reproductive patterns, similar to that seen in increasingly affluent European societies. At the same time, the religious factor, which in some modern societies increases intolerance towards abortion, is largely absent in Russia. Therefore, the current anti-abortion campaign lacks 'grassroots' support, unlike in countries such as the United States or Poland. In this regard, it does not particularly resemble the so-called 'conservative turn' observed in some nations.

The anti-abortion rhetoric in Russia, like the discourse on increasing the birth rate, does not appeal to religious arguments about 'terminating human life', but rather to the threat of 'national disappearance' and the loss of sovereignty due to low fertility. 'For Russia to be sovereign and strong, there must be more of us, and we must be better: morally, in our skills, in our work, in our creativity… Either we open up a life perspective for these generations now… or, within just a few decades, Russia will become a poor, hopelessly aged country (in the literal sense), incapable of preserving its independence and even its territory,' Putin declared in his 2012 address, linking higher birth rates, the revival of 'morality', and territorial sovereignty. Thus, the fight against abortion (as with Putin’s 'conservative project' as a whole), takes on a statist and partly militaristic character in Russia, and in this respect, it evokes comparisons both with Nazi Germany of the 1930s and with Stalin’s 1936 abortion ban.