Right, to my understanding the Russian Orthodox Church has always officially been against abortion. But I have heard different things regarding birth control within marriage. One of the things I have heard is that BC within marriage is OK as long as a spiritual advisor (presumably a priest) approves. I don’t know if such approval is almost always given, almost never given, somewhere in between, if the Russian Orthodox don’t bother with asking, or if it isn’t true in the first place.
In other words, is the drastic decrease in abortion due to folks deciding to have babies or access to better western birth control practices after the iron curtain fell? One is more healthy than the other, in my opinion.
Freegards
I think a lot of clinics have been shut down. Gosnell-type places. You have to remember Russia is sort of a wild-west in about 80% of its landmass. What are the chances an abortion clinic is going to be sanitary way out in Artyomovsk? The Russians may have been gradually centralizing abortion practices to relatively large towns and cities, making them harder for rural folk to seek out. Also, I bet it does have something to do with the rising affiliation with Russian Orthodoxy. Atheism has all but collapsed in Russia (down to 13% from something like 60% after the Soviet Union collapsed. Nowhere have atheists taken a bigger hit in their numbers.
Now, many of those are non-observant, but observant membership has also been rising within Orthodoxy itself. Church has become somewhat fashionable in a country that has experienced serfdom, hedonism, communism and everything in between.
Birth control likely plays a large role too, but I’d say that more people deciding to have children is a factor more-so than in the last five years.. Russia is reversing its demographic trend slowly but surely. It’s becoming a more opportunity-rich country, and the media there promote families (no doubt under nudging from the Kremlin, who want more babies).