Russia’s Abortion Drug Sales Face Restrictions Until 2030: What You Need To Know

The ongoing controversies regarding abortion drugs in some of the countries have ultimately led Russia to highly restrict the sale and distribution of two abortion-inducing drugs until 2030.

Reports from various resources, have it that the two abortion drugs, namely misoprostol and mifepristone will now be facing limited quantity sales by subject-quantitative registration enforced by the Russian government. As translated by the Moscow Times, new and strict restrictions on these so-called drugs will denote considerably limited access to the same for at least until the stated time, i.e., 2030. Going into further details, the restrictions will go into effect from (w.e.f) September 1, 2024.

Russia Restricts Abortion Drug Sales Until 2030

Circumstances leading to this event have also included first and foremost the medical and ethical risks to Russian women with the use of the stated abortion drugs. In addition to that, Russia’s cultural shift in attitude towards abortion has further instilled the need to tighten the rope on restricting these from being sold and distributed.

The country which had been kind of liberal previously on this matter, has abruptly resorted to propagating regulations on anti-abortion, subsequently having its leadership and conservative communities act to concerns regarding forced abortion and the resultant shrink in its population.

The “For Life” movement organized by the anti-abortion activists has also voiced their concerns against selling these abortion drugs, stating them to be highly illegal. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin was quoted to have said, “Demography is a vital issue…Either we’ll continue to exist, or we won’t.” Moreover, the claims made by one of the organizers from the Moscow faction “For Life”, which goes like, “If we don’t illegalize abortion, we cannot grow our population, and how can Russia retain its strength and greatness without that?”, have indeed set off the fire on restricting abortion to a massive extent.

Besides these, concerns related to the birth and future of children in Russia further led to the initiation of the ‘shoe project’ by the group, where this accompanied by anti-abortion activism, significantly called for the need to strictly abort the sale and distribution of the stated abortion-inducing drugs, thanks to the anti-abortion movement having gained momentum in recent times.

It would be worth mentioning here that the demographic crisis triggered by the rising abortion rates in the country was that which truly motivated the Influential Russian Orthodox Church members to ‘seize the opportunity’ for urgently proclaiming a ban on the abortion practice. Of note, this newfound commitment of Russia has also been found to be associated with what can be described as its ‘forward-leaning posture on the global stage’ including wars in Syria and Ukraine, as well as the diplomatic crisis over North Korea.

Strict efforts to limit, and even ban the supply of the abortion drugs by Russia could thus be traced back to the conversation among the host and reporter of Rough Translation with an OB-GYN from Ukraine – as stated in Morning Edition of NPR.

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Though Russia’s invasion and war on Ukraine had had the NPR reporters make secret efforts to resupply abortion drugs to the doctors there, the actual intention was just to help women suffering from pregnancy-related complications owing to the war.

The forced abortion that got triggered subsequently, further raised questions, especially on the ethics and legality of selling the many varieties of abortion drugs to Ukraine. Further, the concerns pointed out by an OB-GYN regarding the relentless abortion rates in the region (Ukraine) eventually prompted the Russian government to strictly restrict misoprostol and mifepristone from being sold in the country and abroad, owing to the supposed population crisis claims.

While this is the news, further confirmation awaits from the media reporters, more explicitly from the medical team on the rationality of banning the drugs till 2030.