17th July 1936''How do the women in the Soviet Union stand towards the new abortion law?'
I would like to first point out the fact that it is an error to place the question of abortion in the foreground in the assessment of the June 27 law. The new law has another and very particular purpose: to give women an even greater possibility than before of combining motherhood with an occupation. Seven out of the eight articles of the law deal with the increased provisions for mother and child. With this law the Soviet state emphasises once again its principled position towards motherhood. Motherhood is not a private affair but a natural social function of women. From the first day of the existence of the Soviet state, Soviet legislation always emphasised the view that women have two primary tasks in the new society: to be active citizens of the state and at the same time not to neglect motherhood. But so that women can fulfill their occupation and citizen’s duty without disadvantage to motherhood, the state must make sure that motherhood is made easier in all possible ways, on the one hand by a broad network of social institutions for children‘s welfare (nurseries, kindergartens, children‘s colonies, homes for mothers, etc.), on the other hand by state material support for the mother, and finally by detailed legislation that governs the question of child support. The new law of June 17 is really a logical extension of this principle.
With this law the Soviet government takes on a huge material obligation in its budget, in order to accomplish the expansion of the institutions for the well-being of mothers and children and make accommodations for women, so that they can fulfill their two tasks without disadvantage to the one by the other.
But what does article 1) of the law mean, which abolishes the former law for the permissibility of abortions and forbids abortions?The law about the permissibility of abortions was approved in 1920 in the Soviet Union under the pressure of specific unfavourable conditions that prevailed in the country at that time. The Civil War was not yet over. Severe economic living conditions prevailed and the main task for the country fighting for its freedom consisted in using all forces for the building of a new social order. Women as active citizens of the state had to take part, even if their maternal duties were thus left behind.
Although the government legally
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