Abortion in The Russian Empire
Abortion was illegal in the Russian Empire, stipulating five years imprisonment for abortion doctors and four years for women who performed self-abortions, but the laws were rarely enforced. Records show that there were a mere 83 prosecutions for the year 1910. In tsarist times, a class of underground abortion doctors known as babki emerged, itinerant women who performed this service. Not merely abortionists, babki also served as nurses and midwives in especially rural areas where proper medical service was unavailable.
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—Diane British (b. 1948)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)