Russian Women have Used More than Two Million ‘Morning After’ Abortion Pills in 2024

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 28 – As the Russian government has imposed ever greater limitations on access to abortions, Russian women have turned to the use of “morning after” pills to deal with unwanted pregnancy. So far this year, the DSM Group which tracks phamaceuticals, says they have used some two million of these pills.
    That continues a trend, the researchers say. Between 2019 and 2023, Russian women bought a total of 11 million such pills, with the numbers rising during the covid pandemic and at the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022 (newizv.ru/news/2024-11-28/god-semi-govorite-rossiyanki-udvoili-traty-na-ekstrennuyu-kontratseptsiyu-434675).
    The Russian authorities have restricted access to these pills by increasingly requiring prescriptions for their purchase, but they have not imposed in countrywide and many women are still able to purchase these pills without the approval of a doctor. According to DSM, they have spent almost eight billion rubles (80 million US dollars) over the last five years.
    The widespread use of such medications shows that many Russians are not willing to respond positively to the Kremlin’s call to boost the birthrate and even have found a means to prevent pregnancies without having to go to hospitals or other medical facilities to get abortions. And at the very least, this will further complicate the Kremlin’s desire to boost the birthrate.