The authorities in Russia are in fact continuing to restrict women's access to abortions. Under pressure from the state, private clinics are increasingly refusing the procedure for terminating pregnancy or delaying it. In the Murmansk region, for example, there is an unofficial ban on medical abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, human rights activists report. After this period, women are left with only the more traumatic methods: vacuum aspiration or curettage.
This is happening against the backdrop of the worsening demographic situation in Russia. After May of this year, the Russian authorities stopped publishing demographic statistics. Shortly before that, the independent analyst and former expert at "Rosstat" Alexey Raksha announced that in March, an absolute record number of births was set in Russia since such statistics were kept at the end of the 18th century.
How clinics make access to abortion difficult
Antonina (name changed by the editors) from St. Petersburg tells DW about the difficulties of trying to have an abortion. The woman found out about her pregnancy in the summer, but decided to have an abortion due to the difficult financial situation: the family already has a small child, and Antonina has also recently lost her job. According to her, the procedure turned out to be expensive, and doctors in several clinics deliberately delayed the deadlines. "I found information that doctors are offered 20,000 rubles for each "successful" "an attempt to persuade a woman not to have an abortion," says Antonina.
In a number of Russian regions, including the Murmansk and Nizhny Novgorod regions, the authorities have officially announced plans to introduce monetary rewards for psychologists and doctors if they persuade a woman not to have an abortion. This has not yet been officially announced in St. Petersburg, but fines are imposed there for inciting abortions: up to 20,000 rubles for individuals and between 30,000 and 50,000 rubles for legal entities.
According to Antonina, the obstacles begin at the stage of coordinating the procedure. "I turned to a large network of private clinics. There they transferred me from one specialist to another, and then they told me that in the whole city an abortion can be performed in only one department," she says. By law, clinics must give a woman 48 hours to think about it, after which Antonina was informed that a number of tests must be performed. And again, the delay continued. Thus, the period for medical termination of pregnancy (six weeks) expired.
"Because of the long wait, six weeks and one day had passed in my case. So the only option left was vacuum aspiration", Antonina recalls, and says that in the end she was issued a bill for a very high amount. In the end, she managed to find a clinic where the terms were more flexible. "After going through all this, I was truly terrified. This is my first experience with termination of pregnancy and I never believed that I would ever face something like this. It's scary that you can't control your life,", the woman says.
Fines for "incitement to abortion"
As of September 2025, fines for "incitement to abortion" will be imposed in a total of 23 Russian regions, the Russian publication RBC reported. This law, first adopted in Mordovia at the local legislative level, provides for administrative liability for incitement to artificial termination of pregnancy. By "incitement" is meant any influence on a woman with the aim of inciting her to have an abortion: agreements, suggestions, etc. In a number of regions, for such a violation, an administrative fine of up to 50,000 rubles may be imposed on the doctor or the director of the clinic, and up to 200,000 rubles on the health facility itself. In addition, it may be left without a license to practice medicine.
So far, there have been no registered cases of imposing administrative liability on doctors for "incitement to abortion" - the State Duma was unable to find information about such sanctions. However, according to experts, the very threat of a fine makes medical professionals fear the consequences. In Nizhny Novgorod, for example, there is a case in which an attempt was made to dissuade a woman with medical contraindications to terminate her pregnancy. And regional authorities have reported a record number of refusals by private clinics to perform abortions: since the beginning of 2025, 46 out of 55 health facilities (84%) have voluntarily given up their licenses to perform such procedures.
The Vologda region is also tightening restrictions on abortions. Earlier this year, the region's governor, Georgy Filimonov, called for a complete ban on the procedure in both state and private clinics. This is already being felt: for example, in April, a local woman was denied an abortion, with the clinic citing an oral order from the regional health ministry - and "moral and religious considerations". In the end, the woman had an abortion in the neighboring Yaroslavl region and even went to court, which fined the acting chief physician of the maternity hospital 15,000 rubles for the clinic's refusal to perform the procedure.
Who wants a complete ban on abortions?
Calls for a complete ban on abortions in Russia are increasingly being heard in pro-government structures. One of the main lobbyists for this measure is the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Back in 2019, Metropolitan Hilarion stated that the Russian Orthodox Church considers abortion to be "legalized murder of the unborn human being", and in 2022, Patriarch Kirill spoke out in support of banning them in private clinics.
In parallel, in 2025, the far-right organization "Russian Municipality" organized a persecution of doctors from clinics in Kaluga. Activists visited hospitals, accused specialists of "murder of Russian children" and put public pressure on them on social networks.
What is the Kremlin's official position?
Over the past ten years, the Kremlin has significantly sharpened its rhetoric on the issue of abortion. If in 2016, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov assured that the authorities were not participating in any discussions on banning abortions, since there were diametrically opposed positions in society, last year he spoke about the difficult demographic situation in the country - about the problem of the catastrophic decline in the birth rate in Russia, which could only be solved by increasing the average birth rate.
A similar transformation is also observed in the position of President Vladimir Putin. In 2017, he warned that banning abortions would lead to an increase in illegal procedures and women traveling abroad to terminate pregnancies; in 2021, he spoke about the need to create conditions for families, and not just dissuade women from having abortions; and now he is already talking about the fact that there are not enough women of reproductive age in Russia and that, given the vast territory of the country, "we may not be able to maintain these parameters if our demographics remain the same".
Author: Evgeny Dyukov