Friday,February 28, 2003
Friday,February 28, 2003 |
| Decades
with no moral or economic direction destroying a nation
By MONROE ROARK A recent story in the Washington Post highlighted a severe problem in a country with a lot of problems. About 13 percent of married couples in Russia are infertile, and that rate is growing, according to reports. In most of those cases - 3 out of 4 - it is the woman who is infertile, and that is routinely caused by complications after one or more abortions. Even though abortions have been decreasing over the past decade, the overall rate in Russia is still five times as high as in the United States and fourth highest in the world. For every three children born alive in Russia, five are aborted. Why are these numbers so high? The Post article did not speculate, but common sense yields a few clues. The regime that dominated that country for most of the past 100 years did not exactly put a high priority on human life. Add a dreadful economic situation into the mix, and millions of families doubtless saw little hope of properly caring for extra children that could be easily disposed of. Consider the overall quality of medical care - Russia spends less of its gross domestic product on health than 37 other European countries -- and it is not hard to see how so many women could end up with permanent damage to their reproductive systems. An example the Post cited was a 30-year-old woman who is now despondent because she thinks that she and her husband will never have children, although not for lack of trying. It seems that she had an abortion at 19 years of age, and her concerns about extensive bleeding after the procedure were downplayed by doctors. She later found out that an infection had partially blocked her fallopian tubes, and although she did conceive with her husband, the fetus lodged in one of the tubes and was also aborted. One can only wonder how many other stories of similar misery can be shared by young people who are reaping the consequences of several generations of economic, moral and spiritual bankruptcy. But beyond the individual stories, there is a national problem that will be extremely difficult to reverse. Sex education and use of contraceptives have been on the back burner for most of the past several decades. Government involvement in those issues has even decreased in recent years, but not the availability of abortions - free in the first trimester on demand, and up through the 22nd week of pregnancy for certain medical or social reasons, such as financial problems or lack of a husband. It is no surprise that the overall birth rate in Russia is in a free fall, but the death rate is rising quickly at the same time. That means that the sixth most populous country in the world could lose one-fourth of its population over the next 50 years - from 143 million to 104 million for the country that has nearly twice as much land as any other on the planet. Pat Buchanan, is his outstanding book "Death of the West," examined how Western civilization is receding due to countries' inability to maintain appropriate birth rates to replace its population. As medical advances around the world are allowing so many of us to live longer, some nations are facing a rapidly aging population and relatively few younger people in the workforce to prop up the economy. A possible economic solution is immigration, which is fine in and of itself, but in mass quantities it can lead to a huge cultural shift, as evidenced by the influx of Muslims into Europe in recent years. How Russia will develop over the next few decades remains to be seen. But looking at the recent history of the former Soviet Union, it appears that a totalitarian, atheistic government is not the best vehicle to take the lead on family planning issues. Sadly, families who thought they had emerged from Communism's shadow will be living with its effects for some time to come. [Monroe Roark's Web address is www.mroark.com.] |