Abortions are to be banned. News about this glaring injustice inflamed the public last week. At the heart of the matter is a resolution by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to toughen procedures to artificially terminate pregnancies in view of social and medical indications. True, it specifies that abortions are now banned after the 12th and up to the 28th week of pregnancy. In the ensuing turmoil no one seemed to remember that a term of 12 weeks, let alone a longer one, is serious, and abortions in the third month are strongly discouraged. In fact, they are not practiced except in the presence of special medical instructions. Then why is a new resolution necessary?
Until last week a cabinet resolution passed in 1993 permitted abortions for a number of medical and social reasons between the 12th and 28th week. “We are bringing our legislative basis into conformity with the newly enacted laws and standards of the World Health Organization and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,” Nadia Zhylka, head of the Mother and Child Health Protection Department at the Ministry of Health, told The Day. “A new resolution also had to be passed in conjunction with the new viability criteria. Now, like in all civilized countries, we consider a 22-week-old fetus viable. An abortion after 22 weeks is murder.”
Fortunately, Ukrainian doctors can now save an unborn child at this age. If circumstances prevent a mother from continuing to carry her child, a preterm delivery is performed. The need to bring the regulatory basis into conformity with this new rule was one of the reasons for the new cabinet resolution.
Another reason was the need to shorten the list of medical indications for an abortion after 12 weeks. Now it is possible only in several cases: if the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life; if the fetus is proclaimed nonviable after a consultation by a committee of doctors, i.e., it will die immediately after or before the delivery. An abortion is allowed in the case of pregnancy resulting from rape or if a woman becomes disabled during pregnancy; also for reasons of age, if a woman is too young or too old to expect to get pregnant until after the fact.
The list ends here. The 1993 one contained far more indications, both medical (e.g., the presence of TB or AIDS) and “others.” Occasionally, women obtained permission to have an abortion after 12 weeks because of financial reasons, being homeless, unemployed, and single. Now these considerations are ruled out. As for diseases like TB or AIDS, they warrant an abortion only if the woman is in the terminal phase and can die at any moment. These conditions may seem cruel, but physicians have their reasons.
“First, there are a number of contraceptive methods today. Second, a woman will have three months to make up her mind,” says Zhylka. “That is time enough to obtain a document testifying to having many children or being homeless, and then have an abortion. Before, such reasons were crucial when allowing abortions after 12 weeks. Now this is out of the question. Only the above-mentioned reasons are valid, although some aspects are disputable. Can we kill the child to let its mother live? We do. An abortion at this stage is a great shock to the organism; it’s very dangerous. We even had a fatal case last year. The woman is hormonally all set to give birth to a baby, and this setting can be changed only as a last resort. Gravid mortality statistics indicate that 60 percent of deaths are caused by abortions. By the way, three women died after having abortions before the 12th week (such abortions are practiced much more frequently), so this is also risky.” Therefore, the main reason for shortening the list of medical indications for abortions is to preserve the mother’s health first and save the child’s life second.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has also determined that abortions between the 12th and 22nd weeks can be allowed only on the recommendation of a commission set up by the Ministry of Health of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea and by the health departments of the Oblasts and Sevastopol City State Administrations, as well as by the Chief Directorate of Health of the Kyiv City State Administration. Such findings are prepared on the strength of an application filed by the expectant mother and other required documents.
Fortunately, illegal abortions appear to have stopped. At any rate, there are no records of their sad consequences. “Twenty years ago illegal abortions were a major problem. Then the number of their victims began to decrease, and I haven’t heard of any in the past three years,” says Zhylka.
