Russian women have warned President Vladimir Putin not to go ahead with plans to restrict abortion in the country.
The women fired a warning Monday saying “No abortion, no sex.”
According to Astra, a news publication of independent Russian journalists, a protest was held in Kazan against the ban on abortions in private clinics as protesters came with signs that read “The ban on abortion does not solve the problem, it only aggravates it,” “Children should be wanted,” “No abortion, no sex,” and “To give birth or not is a woman’s choice.”
Although abortion is still legal and widely available in Russia, recent attempts to restrict it have touched a nerve across the country as activists have since urged supporters to make official complaints, circulating online petitions and even staging small protests. Authorities have also started to restrict access to abortion pills and emergency contraception amid a surge in demand that followed the beginning of the war in Ukraine. In 2022, sales of abortion pills were up 60 percent, according to Nikolay Bespalov, development director of the RNC Pharma analytical company, the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, in recent months, private clinics in Russian regions—including in the Chelyabinsk region in the Ural mountains and in Tatarstan in central Russia—have stopped offering abortions, according to authorities. The move is also being considered in Russia’s Kaliningrad region.
