Catholic Charity Addresses Birthrate Problems

"Our main concern is the birthrate and the great number of abortions in Russia," said Olga Kochatkova, head of the project, who has been working with Caritas for four years.

Abortion is a common, relatively cheap form of birth control, with about 13 abortions for every 10 Russian children born. In 2001, the World Health Organization identified Russia as having one of the highest abortion rates in the world.

Abortions are offered free to women 18 or under and cost only about 1,500 rubles ($53) for older women. Little in the way of sex education is offered in schools and women seeking abortions are not required to undergo counseling.

The country's death rate is alarmingly high, and some demographic experts fear that if present trends continue, the population will shrink by a third in 50 years.

Unusually for a Catholic organization, Life Protection also provides information on contraception, but only if women request it.

It also teaches young people about basic family values and the importance of love in sexual relationships. The project is approved by the Orthodox Church and City Hall's health committee.

A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate declined to comment on its support, but referred to its web site, where it states that abortion is a sin and the church considers it murder.

Patriarch Alexy II in a statement last month called for "united efforts by the state, the Orthodox Church, traditional Russian confessions and society to improve the demographic situation in Russia; to strengthen the moral education of young people, to help them to form a respectful attitude to the family and maternity, to reduce the number of abortions and to protect the life of unborn children."

Life Protection will help women of any Christian denomination as well as other faiths, but most women who seek help from the project have no religious beliefs.

Kochatkova said the religious component of Life Protection is not the main focus of the program, and religion is only addressed if women ask to discuss it, which does not happen often. Seventeen women are currently receiving help from the program, which began in September.

On Oct. 26, an unplanned pregnancy resulted in the birth of Veronika. The young pregnant woman and her mother did not want the baby to be born, but the child's father did. After completing a course of counseling organized by Life Protection, the young woman married her baby's father and gave birth to the child.

"It is our first experience and we are sure the program will work," Kochatkova said.

According to the city health committee, the number of abortions in St. Petersburg has steadily declined in the last few years. In 1999, 49,958 women terminated their pregnancies. The number dropped to 42,035 in 2002.

But Boris Novikov, a leading city gynecologist, said these figures are misleading since they do not include abortions performed in commercial medical centers.

"I don't think there are any fewer abortions; we just can't get the full picture," said Tatyana Kazhukhovskaya, a specialist at the youth gynecological center Yuventa. "In most foreign countries, commercial medical centers are obliged to give their data to the health committee annually or they lose their license. In this country, we still can't make commercial institutions report to the health committee."

The organizers of the new Caritas project believe that through their work they will be able to raise St. Petersburg's birthrate. Their two-stage project is aimed at pregnant women and women with children under 18 months old.

The first stage of the project includes organizing education for teachers at schools, colleges and orphanages and providing them with reliable information about relationships, including contraception.

"The main reason for unwanted pregnancy in our country is the lack of sexual education at school, as well as at home," Novikov said. "The main principle of sexual partners in Russia is avos," trusting in fate.

According to the Yuventa clinic, 52 percent of young men and 42 percent of young women get information about sex from their friends and partners. The next popular source of information on this subject is the media, upon which 32 percent of men and 15 percent of women rely.

Family and school are last on the list: Only 5 percent of men and 6 percent of women say they get their information about sex from these sources.

The result is ignorance about contraception.

"Many women are afraid of taking hormonal birth control pills because they are discouraged by their mothers," said Tatyana Kozhukharova, deputy chief doctor at Yuventa. "At the same time their partners very often refuse to use condoms, so the most popular form of contraception is the coitus interruptus that very often leads to pregnancy."

Life Protection has already organized two seminars for teachers of orphanages in the Leningrad region and for volunteers from teacher training colleges, giving them information on how to prevent abortions.

The next stage of the project is advising mothers-to-be and preparing them for childbirth. It includes counseling those women who come to gynecological centers intending to have an abortion.

"We offer them different kinds of help depending on the situation," says psychologist Vera Vladimirova, one of the project leaders. "We find out the reason why a woman wants to terminate her pregnancy, offer her psychological, legal and sometimes material help, talk to her family, and try to encourage her."

When a 38-year-old woman came to a gynecological center intending to terminate her first pregnancy because she had been fired after employers found out she was pregnant, the director of the center, Irina Yefimova, advised the woman to contact Kochatkova. After several consultations, the woman changed her mind. Life Protection helped her find a new job and she will soon become a mother.

"I just could not let her have an abortion without consulting a psychologist," Yefimova said. "I took her off the chair and brought her to the organizers of Life Protection. The result is obvious."

The program has five permanent workers, including three psychologists, a teacher and a nurse-gynecologist, as well as volunteers.

Life Protection does not have its own building yet, so it works out of gynecological centers in the Krasnogvardeisky and Central districts, giving seminars and consultations for women and organizing meetings for mothers-to-be who are in crisis.

"One of our women has no place to live now because she was deprived of her apartment under a court ruling," Kochatkova said. "She has two 9-month-old babies and is pregnant again. We feel we will have to organize shelter."

Caritas has similar programs across the country, including in Sochi, Irkutsk, Arsentyev, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok, and it claims they have proven to be effective. In Novosibirsk, for example, 150 babies were born after mothers in the program decided against having abortions.

"Such projects are necessary for a society in which the population continues to decline," Kochatkova said. "We are worried about the demographic future of Russia and plan to boost the birthrate in St. Petersburg."

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