Around 150 people gathered in Makhachkala on 14 July calling for a ban on abortion. The protest was followed by heated exchanges on social media over the issue.
The Give Me Life rally was organised by the Daghestan’s Ministry of Health. According to a spokesperson of the ministry, Zarina Murtuzaliyeva, it is held annually.
Employees the ministry attended the rally, announcing that the number of abortions being performed in the republic is on the decline.
‘For example, in 2015 there were 7,703 recorded abortions in the republic, while in 2016 it was 7,274’, Raisa Shakhsinova, head of the ministry’s Maternity Department said at the rally.
‘The initiative was started by the Social-Political Initiatives Fund, chaired by Svetlana Medvedeva, the wife of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The rally was first held in 2008 and has been held every year since then’, Murtuzaliyeva told OC Media.
After the rally was reported in the media, people took to social media to debate the issue, both for and against a ban.
‘Who gave the right to these protesters to decide for other women and girls. Why reproduce in poverty, abortion is better. And if a woman’s health is in danger, it is all the more necessary. This is a private issue for each woman’, one Facebook user Raisa Magomedova wrote in the group, Daghestan online.
‘Giving birth to a child nowadays costs no less than ₽100,000 ($1,700). And what’s next? When the child is ill — ₽4,000–5,000 ($67–84). Feeding them is about ₽5,000–7,000 ($67–118) a month. Dressing them, buying shoes, taking them to school — at least ₽25,000 ($450), not less. And then kindergarten? Where is it? If the father disappears, mother has to work, and work were?’ Alie Karaewa asks.
Users in favour of an abortion ban also wrote their arguments.
‘I don’t support abortions at all, or the right of an adult person to have one. The question is about depriving life of a healthy, I emphasise, child and your arguments sound barbaric’, one Facebook user Aibatir Babalaev writes.
‘God says: “food for one person will be enough for two, food for two — enough for three”. They will not die of starvation, and religion has a different approach to the number of children. Islam calls for you to have many children’, Muhammad wrote.
Online debate over abortion rights flares up intermittently in Daghestan.
In September 2016, head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill approved an initiative to fully ban abortion proposed by the Orthodox Volunteer, a non-governmental organisation. The Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov and the leader of Russian Muslims, Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin have also given their support.
Georgia’s Health Ministry has complicated the process a person has to go through to obtain an abortion, introducing mandatory counselling with a psychologist and social worker prior to the procedure, in a move that women’s rights defenders say could be aimed at providing a barrier to access.
A decree announcing the changes was published on the Georgian Legislative Herald’s website on 27 October, but was discovered by Georgian media on Tuesday.
From 1 January 2024, anyone seeking to terminate
Abkhazia’s abortion ban is back in the news after a woman spoke out about a relative being forced to carry her pregnancy to term in spite of medical complications.
Earlier in October, Victoria Gularya posted on Facebook the story of a relative who was being forced to take her pregnancy to term. Despite doctors telling her relative that the baby would certainly die, she was unable to get an abortion.
Saria (not her real name), a gynaecologist and ultrasound diagnostician, told OC Media that
Preferences for the gender of children has a long history around the world and Georgia is no exception. CRRC-Georgia examines how attitudes have changed over the last decade.
In Georgia, having a boy has traditionally been desirable as sons are often considered the main successors in the family line, and they stay at home to take care of their parents as they age in contrast to women who traditionally move in with their husband’s family.
Preferences for sons are manifested in sex-selective
The Georgian Orthodox Church has come out against ‘the legalisation’ of drugs in Georgia, saying it is considering denying religious rituals to Orthodox Christians who die of an overdose. In a meeting of the Holy Synod, the Church’s ruling body, they called for harsh sentences for drug dealers, while also advocating treatment for users.
In a record of Thursday’s Holy Synod meeting published on the their official website, the Church said that allowing the cultivation of cannabis would mean l
Around 150 people gathered in Makhachkala on 14 July calling for a ban on abortion. The protest was followed by heated exchanges on social media over the issue. 
