Abortions as a main tool of family planning in Kyrgyzstan
This is a translation of the article that Inga posted on the Russian version of neweurasia-Kyrgyzstan
“Our population could have doubled by this time. But today abortions are becoming more fashionable, and women choose to kill their unborn kids. I think it’s because our life conditions are really tough”,- comments Zoya Yakovlevna- a gynecologist in a private medical center in Bishkek. Her earnings today are growing because women are eager to get rid of their unwanted children.
Today various hospitals in Bishkek offer a wide range of “services”: starting from medical abortions, that can be prescribed to women late in pregnancy to mini and homoeopathic abortions. There are also ways to have an abortion using special medications during early months of pregnancy. To cut the long story short, abortions today are available for everyone, poor and wealthy can choose something that fits their pockets.
It is one of normal working days in the big gynecological hospital in the capital. Women cue here every day early in the morning to have an abortion. Those, who leave 2 hours later after surgery is performed (2 hours is a recovery period here), are followed by envious glances – her pain is over for today.
“I remember the time when women would start queuing for an abortion at 6 o’clock in the morning”,- an elderly woman, who used to have 14(!) abortions, recollects. “At that time”, - she says, -“doctors were really cruel with us. They would even scream at us. There were also lots of complications. Now everything is different. All conditions are almost ideal. You can have this surgery and forget about it the very next day”
The majority of women who come here to have an abortion don’t hesitate that they need to use this method of “late contraception” again and again. Many of them think, that regular contraception is too complicated and still think that abortions are much easier.
“When you take pills you need to stick to a certain time-table. You can’t drink alcohol or smoke. It’s difficult to control yourself all the time. Condoms are supposed to be handy in those cases, but my husband doesn’t like them. That’s why it’s better for me to have an abortion now since I already have a child.” This is an opinion of Aselya who is 26.
Aselya is not alone in her approach. Many young women share the same opinion and don’t think that there is anything wrong with having an abortion. May be it is how the society has trained them.
At the end of 2006 the medical report was released. According to this document, 70% of pregnant women in Kyrgyzstan tend to choose abortions as a way to control their fertility. Medical doctors claim ,that the women in the age of 19 year old and below keep contributing to this statistical data.Every year 200 abortions are performed on the girls below 14.
“About 4% of women in Kyrgyzstan don’t want to have children and use abortions as a family planning tool. On average, every woman of a reproductive age tends to have 1,5 medical abortions in her life. Mainly social and economic problems are among factors, forcing women to have abortions,”- says the head of the department of gynecology of the Kyrgyz State Medical Academy Natalia Kerimova.
Thus, abortions in Kyrgyzstan have become almost a routine for many women.
“It’s better to have an abortion than to give birth to an unwanted child,”- claims the nurse of one of the maternity hospitals in Bishkek. “Even if they deliver those kids, they normally abandon them. Do you think someone needs these children? Look at our orphanages! The state allocates less than a dollar per day to feed and provide clothes for the children there. Stuff treats them awfully bad. What kind of generation can be produced in such conditions? ”
“If we want to decrease the number of abortions, we need to explain children what responsibility really means. Both girls and boys should be taught in this manner. I think, that, in part ,we can blame our men, who don’t think that they also need to carry this burden of responsibility when their wives or girlfriends become pregnant,”- says Raisa Abdrahmanova- a general practitioner in Bishkek.
Talking to different people about abortions as a popular trend, I realized, that it was a vicious circle and that there was hardly a way out of it. Abortions are perceived as a social phenomenon, as a consequence of our difficult social conditions. No one seems to be willing to speak or even to acknowledge the fact that abortion can cause lots of harm to women’s health. It is taken for granted, that women in Kyrgyzstan can go through this painful procedure as long as it is “necessary”.
It goes without saying, that women themselves should have a right to choose, whether they want to have children or, alternatively, whether they want to have an abortion. The only problem is that women in Kyrgyzstan are not always on the position of having any choice even when it comes to their own health issues. It is also a well-known fact that the industry of abortions keeps making colossal profits nowadays, so no one is really interested in discouraging women-clients from having yet another painful and dangerous experience.
on January 14th, 2007 at 4:00 am
This is one of the most heart-wrenching stories I’ve read in a long time. First and foremost for the unborn children tossed into the rubbish bin as if they were so much fecal material and secondly, for the women who feel they have no value whatsoever aside from providing sexual pleasure to their boyfriends/husbands. Finally, how tragic that traditional Kyrgyz culture will eventually go the way of all western societies in their complete disregard for life apart from its contribution to the economy. First the unborn, then the infirmed, then the aged, all the helpless segments of a population must be sacrificed to the god of economic prosperity. I weep for yet another society intent on its own destruction.
on January 14th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Yet another symptom of the general bestialisation and degeneration of society in Kyrgyzstan and similar countries… (it’s called ’secularism’ I think).
on January 17th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Just a quick observation. For some reason, I got an impression that Ataman Rakim is very persistent in his attemts to make us think that all the world’s evil comes from secularism. It is not the case. I’m not going to engage into any kinds of theological discussions but would definitely like to discourage him from doing that in the future. At least when it comes to commenting on neweurasia.
on January 30th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
“I’m not going to engage into any kinds of theological discussions but would definitely like to discourage him from doing that in the future.”
You need to come up with more than that to discourage me, my friend.
OK *a substantial amount of evil* is indeed caused by *a certain twisted interpretation and practice of secularism in former Soviet countries*, yes.
I mean, let’s be serious. What the power elites, a certain part of the urban intelligentsia and part of the expats in these countries call ‘secularism’ and even ‘democracy’ is, in fact, actively promote vice and social decay to better oppress and exploit largers swaths of the population. ‘Alkashi’ and ‘narkomani’ do not go for dissent, you see? Therefore, all values and norms that oppose social decay and upkeep a person’s dignity have to be destroyed.
That is one of the core purposes of the kafir power elites and urban intelligentsia’s Islamophobia.
Ironically, naive western do-gooders who are lecturing about promoting ‘frriidum’ of this and ‘friidum’ of that are willy nilly pawns in that game. They do not realise yet that this wil seriously backlash against them in the years to come. This has nothing to do with theology.
I do not even remotely pretend to have the truth for lease. On the other hand, I have spent a substantial part of my carreer in Muslim Africa and in Central Asia and I have seen two or three interesting things. And one of these is that I have rarely seen a society that is so rapidaly decaying and has so little identity and confidence than Kyrgyzstan.
Of course, you’ll come up with, ‘yes, but social decay it has all to do with the bad shape of the economy — lyudi zarplati nye polutshayut’ etcetera. Yes, that is indeed a fundamental explanation. Yet it’s not enough. It has also to do with a certain mindset and with an heavy identity crisis, that is, in turn, exploited and promoted by those in whose interest it is to keep people down.
You seem to be an intelligent woman. So I’m sure you’re well aware of that.