Russia's efforts to combat abortion

I just saw an article by liveaction.org, which describes a bill in Russia to disqualify abortion as a medical service and thus allow doctors to refuse to perform one. I remembered an article by another publication a couple years ago that Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, with about 70% of pregnancies being aborted, and that a city in Russia was to observe a week without abortion. 

Russia has such a high abortion rate because it legalized abortion in the 1920’s, even before the Scandinavian countries.  This was also long before the Pill or even some of the barrier methods had become widely available.

When a country legalizes abortion, we tend to see a new demographic of women seeking abortions.  Before legalization most women who have abortions did so because their birth control methods failed, and after legalization abortion is more likely to be used as a substitute for birth control.  There has been discussion within the pro-life community on whether contraceptives are a solution, but in Russia’s case by the time these methods were available abortion had already become ingrained as a solution to unwanted pregnancy.

An update 7/03/2011:

Lifesitenews reports Russia is expected to enact a law requiring warning labels on abortion ads describing risks to health from abortion, including permanent infertility.