Pronatalist programmes in Eastern Europe

Abstract

IN 1920 the Soviet government enacted an unprecedented and almost unrestricted system of provision of induced abortion on demand. Official distress over the large number of abortions performed under this system and low fertility rates led to imposition of a small fee in 1923. After years of controversy, direct administrative action was finally taken in 1935 forbidding interruption of first pregnancies and requiring a sixmonth interval between legal abortions. In June 1936 the balance of the law of i920 was substantively repealed. At the same time, a system of family allowance payments was established and child-care facilities were expanded with the explicit hope of stimulating population growth. Despite massive resort to illegal abortion, the restrictions of I935 and 1936 were not removed until I955.2 After the re-liberalization of the Soviet abortion laws in December I955, all the European socialist countries, except for the German Democratic Republic and Albania, rapidly enacted similar legislation. In each instance the change in the form and substance of the socio-legal posture towards abortion was enormous, and in each country there was an immediate and clearly visible rise in the number of abortions performed and an apparently related change in the birth and population growth rates.3 While fertility rates have fallen throughout the European world in the postwar period, in much of Eastern Europe the full legalization