Lawmakers in Russias Far East Primorye region on Wednesday passed a law outlawing the act of coercing women into having an abortion, a move that comes asfederal lawmakers debate a bill to ban the so-called childfree movement.The new law defines coercion into abortion as actions such as persuasion, bribery, deceit, blackmail or workplace pressure that compel women to terminate a pregnancy.
It imposes administrative fines on public sector workers and institutions ranging from 5,000 to 100,000 rubles ($54 to nearly $1,100).Doctors who inform a woman about medical conditions that would require her to have an abortion would not face criminal liability under the law.Yury Melnikov,who is the Primorye regions human rights commissioner and the bills author, said the law would help prevent the spread of ideas and values alien to the Russian people and destructive to society, citing concerns about selfishness, permissiveness, immorality and the denial of natural [reproductive] continuation.Primorye is now the 10th region in Russia to implement such a ban, according to the news website Mediazona.Meanwhile, around 500 private clinics across 70 Russian regions have stopped offering abortion services in what authorities call a voluntary initiative, backed by Russias Health Ministry.Concerns over reproductive rights in Russia have grown amid government efforts to increase birth rates in response to the countrys ongoing demographic crisis, caused in part by an aging population, Covid-19 deaths during the pandemic, mass emigration and the war in Ukraine.