Medicine: Back to Abortions

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Among other forms of Marxist progress, the Communist Revolution brought Russia "voluntary motherhood." A 1920 law permitted Soviet hospitals to perform abortions without charge. Business got so heavy that women queued up in some of the bigger hospitals. Abortions were soon rivaling births in some Soviet cities, and a small fee was charged for the service. Alarmed at this drainage of its manpower, Russia banned abortions in 1936 except for strictly therapeutic reasons.

Last week the Soviet government announced that abortions will once more be permitted in Russian state medical institutions to women who want them. Probable reason for the reversal: the spread throughout Russia of illegal abortions. Henceforth, said the government, it will try to avert abortions not by law but by "further extension of state measures for encouraging motherhood and by educational and explanatory means."