Over Last 15 Years, Number of Abortions in Russia Fell by 75 Percent, ‘Vedomosti’ Reports, Precisely the Period in Which Russian Fertility Rates Fell as Well

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 16 – In 2025, there were 20 abortions for every 100 live births, compared to 56 abortions per 100 live births in 2010, falling from 1.01 million in the first year to 236,000 last year, the largest decline in the number of abortions of any country in the world, Moscow’s Vedomosti reports.

            In fact, the paper notes, the number of abortions per 1,000 women in the rpime child-bearing cohort of 15 to 49 has been falling since the mid-1960s, when there were 247 abortions per 100 live births because abortion was the primary form of birth control in the RSFSR (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2026/09/16/1229076-rossiya-okazalas-liderom-po-snizheniyu-abortov).

            These trends, which the newspaper takes great pride in reflect the increasing use of other forms of contraception, urbanization and the desire of many Russians for fewer children. But they suggest that the Putin regime’s confidence that it can increase the birthrate by limiting the number of abortions is almost certainly misplaced.

            On the one hand, precisely because this decline in the number of abortions took place at precisely the time when the Russian fertility rate was falling, there does not seem to be the link between the one and the other that the Kremlin believes in. Instead, Russians are simultaneously having fewer abortions and having fewer children.

            And on the other, this shift from abortion as the primary form of birth control to other means also suggests that the ability of the government to reduce the abortion rate significantly in the future is likely far less than the Kremlin imagines and that even if it makes abortion harder to get, that won’t boost the birthrate as it hopes.