Abortion in Russia - Abortion in The Russian Empire

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.

Read more about this topic:  Abortion In Russia

Famous quotes containing the words abortion, russian and/or empire:

    It is always the moralists who do the most harm. Abortion is the logical outcome of civilization, only the jungle gives birth and moulders away as nature decrees. Man plans.
    Max Frisch (1911–1991)

    An enormously vast field lies between “God exists” and “there is no God.” The truly wise man traverses it with great difficulty. A Russian knows one or the other of these two extremes, but is not interested in the middle ground. He usually knows nothing, or very little.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    The foundation of empire is art & science. Remove them or degrade them, & the empire is no more. Empire follows art & not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.
    William Blake (1757–1827)