A short overview about new developments

"On July 05 Mizulina`s Group has introduced a set of amendments to Basic Health Care Law without registering them at Secretariat. However, the Duma Health Committee rejected all of them with the only one exception. They took "48 hours of silence" for the group of "prima gravida" and included it into recommended Amendments to the Basic Law.

It was initially planned to have July 8 a Second Reading of this Law, but due to severe comments coming from the health professionals and experts from economic field, the Second Reading is now postponed until the Autumn Parliament` Session.

Mizulina`s colleagues are unhappy that the health profile Committee rejected their proposals, on the other hand they are very enthusiastic for introduction of the 48 hours of abortion delay for the first pregnancy termination! Now they are thrilled that the current Law on abortion is not made with stone and could be changed at the end! Their new Strategy is: to reformulate their proposal and to consequently register it at the Governmental Duma as a specific Law.

In addition to those recent news, today we have received a press-release from the MoHSD. It is very disappointing...The document is prepared on purpose of Second Readings of the Basic Law .It seems that the author is MoHSD employee - the Deputy Head of the Mother and Child Health Department in parallel the member of Mizulina` Group - prof. Oleg Filippov. The press-release is stating that abortion " is a disabling\harmful procedure" and that there is a need for psychological and social support for the "crisis pregnancy" as well as for the "post-abortion syndrome" which need psycho-social support and counseling. For those purposes the Ministry (this idea seconds the proposals from the Moscow Demographic anti-choice Forum!) is organizing specialized Centres (based on the Women`s Consultations and Family Planning facilities) to pursue (and not to force!) women to continue unwanted pregnancy and give birth."

Dr. Lyubov Erofeeva MD, MPH
RAPD General Director

The recently signed memorandum of cooperation between MoHSD and the Church (in brief + link to full text in coments, in Russian)

I suppose we should make an international pro choice coalition, I started to do in FB