Soviet poster circa 1925. Translation of text at top: "Abortions performed by either trained or self-taught midwives not only maim the woman, they also often lead to death." Caption for upper-left picture: "Visiting the self-taught midwife" Upper-right picture: "Consequences of abortion" Lower picture: "Death from abortion" Text at lower left: "Any abortion is harmful." Text at lower right: "Any trained or self-taught midwife who performs an abortion is committing a crime."
Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine
My question is why would the Communists be anti-abortion? If not for the religious belief that life begins at conception what other reason is there not to do it? Or is it because you're destroying a potential contributor to the great Soviet society? Was abortion outlawed for the same reason other vices were in the CCCP?
Communist posters? what's next: impressionist paintings? am I at the right blog?
ReplyDeleteIIRC, abortions were not banned in toto under the Soviets. I suspect this poster was intended to steer the public toward abortion services provided by the institutions of the state. The skills of the local "trained or self-taught midwives" were probably not quite up to snuff in the eyes of the Supreme Soviet.
ReplyDeleteWhere here do you see any reference to the abortion itself being wrong or illegal? The only reference to illegality is the service of the midwife.
"Any abortion is harmful." That seems to be telling me not to do it, even in a state-run clinic, no?
ReplyDeleteThere was a time that Russia was pushing for large families and population growth . . . perhaps that is a connection.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure you're translating it correctly? Perhaps the word you're rendering as "harmful" really means "dangerous" or "risky". Any surgical procedure is risky, so perhaps that's all the poster is saying.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that in the USSR abortion was a routine method of contraception, and people thought nothing of having several.
It's not talking about medical abortions but about "miscarriages" - artifically induced, presumably. There probably weren't enough doctors to perform legitimate abortions in 1925.
ReplyDeleteThe leftist pro-abortion agenda (we well as leftist homosexual agenda) link is a phenomenon of US and Western European liberalism.
I had no idea we had so many Russian experts here! The translation is from Wikipedia, who got it from the NLOM. I just copied it. What do I know about Russian? Hungarian, yes, but Russian?
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