A Mother Tucking Children Into Bed
1921
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Editor’s Foreword:
First, I checked RIA-Novosti, VOR, and Interfax for news of this… it wasn’t there, either on the English or Russian sides. It was splashed all over Western media… especially Neoliberal (“conservative”) sources. That rang alarm bells off in my mind. Ergo, I decided to check the veracity of the figures offered. I want you to know what the Neoliberal pukes are saying… take the following with reservations, please. It’s not completely up to Hoyle. I’ll go further on this in my Afterword.
BMD
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On Friday, the Russian parliament adopted a law limiting abortions, but rejected even tougher restrictions backed by the country’s conservative (sic) Orthodox Church. Health officials say Russia’s abortion rates are amongst the world’s highest, contributing to a fertility rate of only 1.4 children per woman, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain the existing population. The country’s birth rate has become a serious concern for Russia as it fights to stem a steep population decline. The Health Ministry says more than a million pregnancies are terminated in Russia annually, although abortion critics say the statistics don’t include private clinics and the real number amounts to six million a year. The law passed Friday limits abortions to 12 weeks of pregnancy, except for women who say they can’t afford a child, who may have an abortion up to 22 weeks. The law also stipulates a mandatory waiting period of two to seven days before the procedure to allow a woman to reconsider her decision. The law doesn’t include restrictions proposed by the Russian Orthodox Church (sic), such as a requiring a husband’s consent for married women, parents’ consent for teenage girls or for a doctor’s right to refuse an abortion. During the Soviet era, abortion laws were liberal and unrestricted abortions became virtually the only effective method of family planning, as condoms were unreliable and seldom used. The abortion debate in Russia hasn’t become as divisive and heated as the abortion debate in the United States, but the effort to restrict them has strong backing from the Russian Orthodox Church, which has sought a more muscular role in society. Russia’s population, now at 143 million, has shrunk by 5.7 million since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, a plunge blamed on rampant alcoholism, bad diets, and lack of exercise.
21 October 2011
Associated Press
As quoted in the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russias-parliament-adopts-law-restricting-abortions-to-12-weeks-with-exception-for-poor/2011/10/21/gIQA1T7Z3L_story.html
Editor’s Afterword:
Earth to American journalists! Check out your facts before writing your story. There’s much wrong in the above piece, and let Tyotya Vara walk you through the real deal. Firstly, let me tell you where I got my facts. I went to Wikipedia, and typed in, “fertility rate in Russia”… that took me here. The figures here are official Russian statistics. The LOWEST fertility rate recorded was in 1999, with a TFR of 1.543; it improved to 1.665 in 2004, the last year available. Note that both are above the figure quoted by the AP, which means that the AP got it from crank Western intel sources… they didn’t even check the Russian figures. To further nail this down, the birth rate that had dropped to 8.7 percent in 1999, had rebounded to 10.7 in 2007, a 23 percent increase in the birth rate. In addition, there was negligible out-migration prior to 1991, but that increased exponentially after 1991, leading to millions of Russians living abroad, mostly in Europe and North America. When one factors in net out-migration rates, the picture isn’t as bad as Western intel agencies like to paint out.
In short, the AP and the Post are passing on unmitigated bullshit from Langley. Is there a “demographic problem”… yes, there is. However, it’s not as bad as Western “La Russophobes” say it is. Indeed… the native population in the USA has birth patterns quite similar to those in Russia. The growth in the US population is mainly in recent Hispanic arrivals and their children (the rest of the growth is in immigration, there’s been a slight decrease in the native population), who were brought in by American businessmen to depress wage levels in the labour market. I must add that it was a successful dodge; by the way, today, ordinary Americans earn only 85 percent (in real terms) as much as they did in 1981. Where did that money go? It went to subsidise a 250 percent growth in the earnings of the most affluent five percent.
There be dragons out there, and the American corporate media is one of them. Check out what they say… all too often its out-and-out lies and evasions. Look at how they demonised Gaddafi. The real reason that the oligarchs hated Muammar was that he used his country’s oil wealth to finance a solid and generous social welfare system. Just you watch, the first act of the “liberators” will be to turn this money over to their Western paymasters and puppeteers. Of course, the Western oligarchs will pay their kleptocratic servants well. It’ll be a repeat of Batista’s Cuba. It just might end the same way… with the ordinary Libyans hating the Americans as much as the ordinary Cubans do.
America loves reproaching others whilst it practises the very same things… it loves telling lies about others’ “weakness” whilst it boasts of its own “strength”… it loves brutalising the helpless and kicking them when they’re down… it loves killing all those that it labels as “foes”. You reap what you sow… if you sow the wind, you’ll reap the whirlwind… have we forgotten that?
BMD
