The Patriarch's Abortion Prevention

Pregnant women in 16 regions across Russia will receive letters from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, to dissuade them from getting an abortion. The initiative comes as these regions introduce legislation to crack down on women's reproductive rights, in partnership with the Church. 

Reproductive rights have a hot and cold relationship with the Russian state. In 1920, the Soviet Union legalized abortion. In 1936, pregnancy terminations were banned to increase the birth rate in the USSR. However, underground procedures left many women infertile, leading to abortion being legalized again in 1955. After the Soviet Union's collapse, a 1993 law allowed all women to decide on motherhood independently.

In the 2010s, the Russian Orthodox Church began campaigning to ban abortions nationwide. At first, legislation banning abortions was rejected. But, since 2023, politicians have begun introducing legislation to restrict pregnancy terminations. Private clinics in Kursk, Liptesk, and the illegally annexed Crimea have already refused to perform abortions. In the Tver region, pregnant women were given letters from the Orthodox Metropolitan Ambrose about "the most difficult choice: to keep or kill your baby."

The letters from Patriarch Kirill are part of the program "Zdravstvuy Mama!" (Hello Mom), designed by Natalia Moskovitina. The letters will be handed over with "help binders" upon a pregnant woman's first appointment at a women's clinic. The folders include a letter from the head of the region and the head of the local metropolitanate. They also contain a booklet with resources from the state, the Russian Orthodox Church, businesses, and non-profits. Employees at prenatal care clinics must also show a plastic fetus and say, "You can see that it is already a person." 

Moskovitina told RIA Novosti that the Patriarch's letter would bless the pregnant woman and the embryo. Kirill's text says, "I hope that soon, with the will and effort of his relatives, the child will be reunited with Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism and receive the opportunity to grow spiritually in the grace of God." Moskovitina herself introduced legislation to ban "persuading" a woman from getting an abortion. The initiative has been passed in ten Russian regions.

The Patriarch's letter and "help binders" will be sent to women in Karelia, Mordovia, Udmurtia, Komi, Kamchatka, Zabaikalsky Krai, Arkhangelsk, Kemerovo, Tambov, Magadan, Samara, Tver, Novgorod, Pensa, and in Moscow's St. Alexey Church Hospital.