Stemming the Slaughter in Russia

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        An article in The Globe and Mail of July 2, 2003 recounts how Russian legislators are pondering whether to place new restrictions on abortions after 12 weeks, in view of the virtual self-decimation of the Russian population since the "fall of communism." The, entitled "Restricting abortion in Russia" begins with the story of Anya Kareyeva, a 33-year-old woman about to undergo her 16th abortion. The article goes on to quote a Kremlin deputy, Alexander Chuev, who laments that "We are losing population and we have this very serious sexual revolution destroying society." Chuev doesn’t seem to have noticed what the dupes of Fatima revisionism are quite certain of: that Russia has been "converting" since the "consecration" of 1984.

        Proposed legislation would leave abortion on demand untouched during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, but would limit late-term abortions to cases of "rape, a husband's death or a court ruling restricting a woman's right to be a parent." But the proposal has "stirred up a debate never before seen in the country, where both antiabortion and pro-choice movements are as young as the country's democracy."

        Democracy? What democracy? Putin has silenced the independent press and overseen legal restrictions that virtually prohibit the existence of minority opposition parties. At any rate, the legislative motive is not to prohibit abortion on moral grounds, but rather on purely pragmatic ones: Russia is committing suicide by abortion.

        The problem, according to one Shura Karpova, who has had 15 abortions herself, is that while "The culture of contraception is developing," not all men are willing to practice it when cheap abortions are so readily available. More than 19 years after the "consecration of Russia," the big problem in the typical Russian’s mind is that contraception has not yet taken the place of abortion! Today, says the article, "abortion [is] the most common method of family planning." What sort of "conversion" is this?

        The article makes the telling point that "Historically, Russia has been among the most lenient places on Earth when it comes to regulation of abortion. The Bolsheviks first legalized the practice in 1920… Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin banned it 16 years later as the population decreased, hoping to increase the birth rate and with it the ranks of soldiers and workers… Abortion was again fully legalized in 1955." Abortion is certainly among the errors of Russia that Our Lady warned would spread throughout the world.

        Today we see a reprise of Stalin’s approach to abortion: a desperate "ex-communist" regime is trying to stem the abortion holocaust solely in order to elevate a plummeting birthrate that threatens Russia’s very existence. And this is the sorry nation which — so the dupes of Fatima revisionism tell us — has been undergoing a "miraculous transformation" since the non-consecration of 1984. Have these dupes not considered their own complicity in the holocaust of abortion in Russia? To praise the state of Russia since 1984 is to come under the Biblical condemnation of those who call evil good, and good evil. (Isaiah 5:20) It is these false prophets who facilitate the progress of evil — in Russia and the world — by delaying the execution of Our Lady of Fatima’s request.