Russian Women Issue Warning to Putin: 'No Abortions—No Sex!"

In protest of recent efforts in Russia to restrict abortion, Russian women issued a warning to President Vladimir Putin on Monday saying, "No abortion, no sex."

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.

On Monday, 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."

According to Moscow Laundry, a news organization, the protest was also approved by the authorities, but no more than two dozen participants were allowed to attend.

The protest comes as a response to the development of a bill that would remove abortion services from private clinics as it is also planned to reduce the period at which termination of pregnancy is possible.

Newsweek has reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

This follows other policies being introduced in the country to curb abortions. Reproductive rights and abortion have become widely discussed and are focused on as a theoretical deterrent to declining population figures.

"Russia really does have a demographic problem," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, said on November 12 as he called for a nationwide ban on "encouraging women to have abortions." It's a vast country, but there are not enough people. Not even mentioning the economy...We really need more people, this is obvious, everyone admits it," he said.

In November, Valery Seleznyov, a member of the Russian State Duma, proposed releasing women convicted of minor charges from prisons so they can conceive.

Additionally, state Duma member Sultan Khamzaev also proposed in an appeal in November to Tatyana Golikova, Russia's deputy prime minister for social policy, labor, health and pension provision, that authorities should offer payouts to Russian women who refuse to have an abortion.

"The state must have a maternal protective function, and if a woman has already decided to have an abortion, then the most effective way to save the child is to take him into the care of the state," Khamzaev said.

Russia has been experiencing a population decline, appearing to have worsened amid the ongoing war with Ukraine, with high casualty rates.

In January 2020, about two years before Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin announced a series of policies aimed at increasing the number of children being born in Russia from an average birthrate of under 1.5 per woman to 1.7 within four years.

The plans included funding for new mothers and not just "maternity capital" for families with two or more children, in addition to welfare benefits for low-income families and free school meals for four years.

As of January 1, 2023, 146.45 million people were estimated to be residing on the Russian territory, marking a decrease of approximately 530,000 from the previous year, according to Statista.