From the Discussion in Izvestiia, May 29, 1936. May 29, 1936
Original Source: Izvestiia, 29 May 1936.
Letter from “A Housewife” (published May 29, 1936).
People say there is no need to teach childbearing; everyone knows how to do that. But we must learn to give birth not to just any sort of child, but to a healthy baby full of life, while at the same time preserving our own health and ability to give birth to further children. This is connected with woman’s whole nervous system and has great influence on her entire life. It is a complicated and responsible task!
I welcome the government’s draft law which has been published for discussion by the workers. Such a draft could have been produced only in our truly progressive and great country. But I think it should take into account the problem of extending the services and improving the methods of the gynecological advice stations. At present they give exhaustive answers to all the questions put to them by the women who come to them. But the consultants should themselves visit the women, should develop a great social service, arrange lectures, publish popular pamphlets, organize exhibitions, etc. I believe that the need for such intensive work would soon lessen. The simple but comprehensive knowledge will be passed on from mother to daughter.
U. Kapalkova, Moscow.
Letter signed “A Mother”.
For eighteen years I went out to work and was a member of a Trade Union for fourteen years (1918-32). Then I had a daughter. After the girl had spent a month in a nursery school and had frequently fallen ill, the doctors advised me to take her home and look after her personally. I was working at the Soyuz factory where I was released after procuring a certificate stating the reason for my absence. But after a while the Group organizer refused to mark my Trade Union card and thus annulled my standing as a worker and Trade Union member. I think this was wrong.
In the government’s draft there should be included an article to run as follows: “Women who are forced to leave work to care for an ailing child do not forfeit their acquired standing as workers. The time spent in looking after the child is to be counted as outside work, for the purpose of the pension payable upon incapacitation. ”
Letter from a Student (“I Object”).
I have read in the press the draft law on the prohibition of abortion, aid to expectant mothers, etc., and cannot remain silent on this matter.
There are thousands of women in the same position as myself. I am a student reading the first course of the second Moscow Medical Institute. My husband is also a student reading same course at our Institute. Our scholarships amount jointly to 205 rubles. Neither he nor I have a room of our own. Next year we intend to apply for admission to a hostel, but I do not know whether our application will be granted. I love children and shall probably have some in four or five years’ time. But, can I have a child now? Having a child now would mean leaving the Institute, lagging behind my husband, forgetting everything I have learnt and probably leaving Moscow because there is nowhere to live.
There is another married couple in our Institute, Mitya and Galya, who live in a hostel. Yesterday Galya said to me: “If I become pregnant I shall have to leave the Institute; one cannot live in a hostel with children. ”
I consider that the projected law is premature because housing problem in our towns is a painful one. Very often it is the lack of living quarters that is the reason behind an abortion. If the draft included an article assuring married couples, who are expecting a baby, of a room-that would be a different matter.
In five years’ time when I am a doctor and have a job and a room I shall have children. But at present I do not want and cannot undertake such a responsibility.
K. B.
Amendments from Women Collective Farmers
Published May 30, 1936. Kiev, May 29-by telephone from our own Correspondent,
A woman collective-farmer, E. M. Dubkovetskaia, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, has come forward with a proposal to introduce the following amendments into the draft of the law:
A woman who is nursing a baby and has again become pregnant should be allowed to have an abortion performed. Other conditions under which abortion is permissible should also be clearly stated so that the doctors could not reject a patient.
Secondly, as for nursery schools in the villages, it is known that these are subsidized out of the cultural needs tax. This, at present, amounts to little. In our village, Zaliskoe in the Talnovskii region near Kiev, the nursery schools house more than 100 children and are constantly full up.
Lastly, a few words about milk kitchens. Collective farms which run a dairy farm should be able to organize their own milk kitchens directly in the village, by mobilizing their own resources.
Woman collective-farmer P. Y. Buga
Another of five children, said as follows when the draft law was discussed:
“The project promises State allowances to large families after the seventh and eleventh child. I think State allowances should be given as early as for the fifth child, for it is no easy job to rear a family of five. The premium could be fixed at 1,000 rubles, with appropriate cuts in the subsidy payable at the birth of the eighth and twelfth child. ”
The distinguished woman collective-farmer H. Tribus (of the Luxemburg region) proposed the addition to the law of an article establishing special collective farm funds for aid to mothers and children.
Letter from “An Engineer”:
” Abortions cannot be categorically forbidden. ”
I am non-party, married, with a 5-year-old son. I work as an engineer and have been and still am in a responsible position. I regard myself as a good citizen of the USSR
I cannot agree with the prohibition of abortions. And I am very glad that this law has not entered into force but has been submitted to the workers for discussion.
The prohibition of abortion means the compulsory birth of a child to a woman who does not want children. The birth of a child ties married people to each other. Not everyone will readily abandon a child, for alimony is not all that children need. Where the parents produce a child of their own free will, all is well. But where a child comes into the family against the will of the parents, a grim personal drama will be enacted which will undoubtedly lower the social value of the parents and leave its mark on the child.
A categorical prohibition of abortion will confront young people with a dilemma: either complete sexual abstinence or the risk of jeopardizing their studies and disrupting their life. To my mind any prohibition of abortion is bound to mutilate many a young life. Apart from this, the result of such a prohibition might be an increase in the death-rate from abortions because they will then be performed illegally.
As for the increase in alimony, the enforcing of payment, the development of a network of maternity homes, nursery schools and kindergartens-all these must be welcomed. Aid to large families should, I think, begin with the fourth or fifth child, while amount of the subsidy could be decreased.
E. T.
Answer to the Student
Published in Izvestiia June 2nd, 1936)
Your paper recently published a letter from a student K. B., in which she raised objections to the prohibition of abortions. I think the author of the letter “I object” has not grasped the full significance of the projected law. The difficulties about which K. B. writes and which, according to her, justify abortion are, she thinks, the difficulties of to-day which will have disappeared to-morrow. The writer of that letter completely ignored the fact that the government, by widening the network of child-welfare institutions, is easing the mother’s task in looking after the child. The main mistake K. B. makes is, in my view, that she approaches the problem of childbearing as though it were a private matter. This would explain why she writes: “I shall have them (children) in four or five years’ time. ” She hopes by that time to have completed her studies, obtained a medical diploma and found both a job and a room. But one must be logical! If during these years K. B. intends to have recourse to abortions, who can vouch that by the time when she desires to have children she will still be able to do so? And for a normal woman to be deprived of the possibility of having children is as great a misfortune as the loss of a dear one.
I used to study in a factory and received a very small allowance while bringing up my small son whom I had to bring up on my own. (His father was dead.) It was a hard time. I had to go and unload trains or look for similar work that would bring in some money … that was in 1923. Now my son is a good, tough Komsomol and a Red Army soldier in the Far East. How great are my joy and pride that I did not shun the difficulties and that I managed to bring up such a son.
At present my son and I are competing in our studies. He has promised me to qualify as a machine-construction engineer while I have promised him to complete successfully the course at the Institute for Red Professors where I study.
G. F.
“About Divorces and Abortions”
My age should place me above any suspicion of too subjective an attitude towards the questions dealt with in the government’s project of law. I therefore venture to state my view.
For many years I have been engaged in educational activities and have always striven to be as near to young people as possible, taking an interest in their social and family life.
The lack of discipline manifested in the divorces must be remedied-but can people who feel it impossible to live together be bound to each other by the imposition of a fine?
Abortions are harmful. One cannot disagree with that. But situations in life do exist when this harmful remedy will allow a woman to preserve normal conditions of life.
If a single child already ties a woman down, two, three or four children leave her no possibility at all of participating in social life and having a job. A man suffers less. He gives the family his salary irrespective of the number of children-and the whole burden falls upon the mother.
Sometimes abortion is an extreme but decisive means of averting the disruption of a young woman’s life. It may become imperative through the accident of an unlucky liaison for a young girl-student without means for whom a child would be a heavy penalty, or through bad heredity of the parents or a number of other contingencies which play an important part in life and can often lead to its mutilation. All this must be taken into account.
It must not be thought that the majority of abortions are the result of irresponsible behavior. Experience shows that a woman resorts to abortion as a last resource when other methods of safeguard against pregnancy have failed and the birth of a child threatens to make her life more difficult.
Simple statistics show that in spite of this the birth-rate of our country is increasing rapidly. And what is needed is not pressure, but a stimulation of the birth-rate by means of financial assistance, improved housing conditions, legal action against those who fail to pay alimony, etc.
I would most urgently plead for the greatest care in deciding whether to prohibit abortions. Abortions will become obsolete by themselves when knowledge of human anatomy spreads, methods of birth-control are more widely used and-last but not least-when housing conditions are improved.
Prof. K. Bogolepov, Leningrad.
Leading article in Izvestiia, June 4, 1936: “Popular Discussion”
The growth of Soviet democracy has found its expression in the workers’ discussion of the draft law on the prohibition of abortions, assistance to expectant mothers, etc. The Soviet government worked out this project in order to meet the needs of the working woman. But because this new law concerns the vital interests of millions of people, because it affects every Soviet citizen, because it touches on the most intimate aspects of life, the government did not think it possible to promulgate such a law without a preliminary widespread and thorough popular discussion. Our country is on the eve of passing a new constitution which will give citizens rights unheard of in the history of humanity, which will give them the scope for the full flowering of their personality. And the very fact that the draft of the new law has been passed on for discussion by the workers has been welcomed by the Soviet people as a result of the growth of the country’s might, of the unity of the people cemented by the Party and the government in the struggle for a socialist society and of the increasing civic consciousness among citizens.
For ten days already millions of Soviet citizens have been debating the government’s project of law. At meetings, in the shops and clubs, in the collectives and Soviet farms, in the institutions and the homes, conversations about the project are taking place. From such serious and matter-of-fact discussion tens and hundreds of concrete remarks, amendments and additions are born. One of our newspapers received no less than 3,713 letters from readers during these days. The toilers of our land are clearly stating their suggestions, demands and explanations.
The overwhelming majority of the proposals and remarks of the workers, the very nature of these proposals testify to the growth of consciousness in the Soviet people, to their excellent understanding of the national importance of the draft of the new law. The Soviet people see in this project new evidence of the great care the Party and the government lavish on the working men and women, on mothers and children. And the toilers of this land understand perfectly that the new law has for its aim the strengthening of the Soviet family, the safeguarding of the health of millions of women, the rearing of a numerically strong and healthy generation who will continue and complete their fathers’ and mothers’ struggle for a happy life.
The project is being debated with unusual and searching attention. Its every point is being subjected to careful examination. And the thousands of suggestions made deal not only with the questions put forward by the project but with scores of new questions connected with it. All the aspects of life in its complexity-the questions of housing and the material background of the family in general, the questions of the relations of the sexes, the questions of love, of education, of morality, the problems of medical science, etc., have come into the limelight of topical interest. Girls and boys, men and women, write in their letters about their thoughts and experiences, about their hopes and aspirations. Side by side with a feeling of sincere gratitude towards the Party and the government for the care they take, the letters of the workers contain complaints about the poor work of local organizations, about bad nursery schools; to which one fears to entrust one’s child, about shortcomings in the activities of the maternity homes, nurseries, milk-kitchens, and sometimes about a heartless attitude towards expectant mothers and mothers in general.
But apart from this there is evidence that the very discussion of the government’s project, which has as yet no legal validity, has borne fruit. We must here note, above all, the numerous cases where women have refused to have abortions performed although they had already received an authorization, or cases where fathers who were hiding themselves to evade the payment of alimony have come forward of their own accord. In the Donbass, in one of the shops of the Makaev metallurgical works, the worker Kasareva, mother of seven children, was dismissed as she was expecting another baby. Now this mistake of the management and the Trade Union group has been rectified. F. E. Kasareva has been reinstated in her work; she is paid her wages during her absence on leave, two of her children are being cared for in a nursery at the factory’s expense, and two more of her children have been sent to a children’s convalescent home.
Hundreds of suggestions put forward during the discussion of the project express the opinions and wishes of individual groups of workers. Hundreds of amendments and supplements foresee situations which it will be necessary to consider under the project. All this will no doubt assist the government when the law is promulgated. The proposals, amendments and wishes of the workers, their objections, suggestions and alterations will be considered by the government. It must, however, be said that the local organizations did not everywhere arrange to collect the workers’ suggestions, and not everywhere was the business-like character of the discussion of the law preserved. The following kind of thing has happened: the project is “gone over” and a resolution passed to accept it “unanimously and fully”-although the government is not interested in such resolutions, but in concrete wishes and amendments. Not everywhere has the explanation of individual articles, of obscure points which puzzle the workers, especially in the villages, been organized. All these shortcomings must be removed during the next few days.
The discussion of the project for the new law demonstrates before the whole world the people’s great love for and confidence in the government and shows how sure the Soviet citizen is of the morrow-his own and his country’s.
Komsomol Boichenko, who wrote to Comrade Stalin recently, expressed the thoughts of the women of our country when she said:
“I shall bring up my children to be worthy citizens of our beloved and happy fatherland. This shall be my gratitude for all the fatherly care which you, Iosif Vissarionovich, have shown towards me. ”
“Remarks by a People’s Judge”
Published in Izvestiia, June 5th, 1936.
Under the draft law on prohibition of abortion, assistance to expectant mothers, etc., it is proposed to exact alimony to the amount of one-third of the earned income for one child, one-half of the earned income for two children and 60 per cent for three or more children. In my view this article of the law should be couched in different terms. It is necessary that the People’s Court should have the right to decide the question of alimony, not exceeding 70 per cent of the earned income, on the merits of each individual case.
Court practice shows that it is impossible to decide question by a hard-and-fast rule. Let us imagine that a judge has to decide on two alimony suits concerning two families whose circumstances are completely similar so far as wages and the number of dependents are concerned. Let us further imagine that the law provides definite norms covering both cases. But in one of the cases one of the parties produces a certificate from a medical commission to the effect that one of the children is ill or that the father or the mother requires special treatment involving extra expense-can the court pass these factors by without taking them into account? The same amount of alimony can therefore not be awarded in both cases even though they are similar in material circumstances.
Our courts are above all concerned with safeguarding the interests of the child. But the interests of the litigants must not be forgotten. There are cases where the mother earns twice as much as the father who pays alimony. Here is an example: a mother who brings in a suit for alimony earns 800 rubles while the father earns 400. They have two children, and according to the law-project the father should contribute half his earnings. Thus the mother with two children will have 1,000 rubles while the father, irrespective of the number of his dependents, will have 200 rubles.
Here is another instance. We judges often have to examine cases in which the defendant is very well off; he earns, let us say, 3,000 rubles. According to the project an order should be made for the payment of 1,000 rubles for one child. Is it fair to exact such sums?
Why should it not be more expedient to allow the court to decide these matters? There are fathers who, in order to evade alimony, or at least to reduce the amount to a minimum, take a badly paid job while their special qualifications (say electrical engineering) enable them to earn a great deal more on the side their nominal work brines in. When the child’s welfare is at stake, this has to be taken into account.
G. Elkin
Chief People’s judge of the Moscow Region.
“Do Not Underrate the Evil!” (published June 8, 1936).
The problem of abortion is a difficult and extremely complicated one. It has become the center of a great tangle in which the interests of the individual and those of the collective are intertwined; family, society, State and humanity have tried to disentangle this knot in various ways, but so far without success.
Sixteen years ago, i.e., almost from the first moment of its existence, our Socialist State took up the problem of abortion and tried to solve it. Those were difficult times. The country was shaken by war and by the civil war that followed in its wake, was worn out by the intervention and faced extremely difficult economic conditions. It was under these conditions that the government legalized abortion by the law of November 18, 1920. This law was of temporary importance and pursued a strictly limited aim. It took the pregnant women under its wing and saved them from the hands of money-grabbing quacks by making it possible for the operation to be performed by experienced specialists in hospital surroundings.
This law legalizing abortions has often been the target of all sorts of attacks on the Soviet “abortion legislation”. But even our enemies had to recognize some of its positive aspects.
Designed to combat illegal abortion, the law of 1920 has not, however, torn up the root of the evil, has not liquidated abortion as such. It is wrong for some comrades to underrate the evil. For it is not only a question of the numerous living beings who disappear yearly as a result of abortion, but also of the hundreds of women who die from the complications arising after abortion. People do not see or do not want to see the dangers inherent in abortion. The fact that the operation goes unpunished and is relatively safe has created an illusion of the complete harmlessness of abortion. It is our duty to dispel this misconception.
Performing an abortion is an operation undoubtedly involving great risks. There are few operations so dangerous as the, cleaning out of the womb during pregnancy. Under the best of conditions and in the hands of the most experienced specialist this operation still has a “normal” percentage of fatal cases. It is true that the percentage is not very high. Our surgeons have brought the technique of performing abortions to perfection. The foreign doctors who have watched operations in our gynecological hospitals have unanimously testified that their technique is irreproachable. And yet … there are still cases in which it is fatal. This is understandable. The operation is performed in the dark and with instruments which, so far as their effect on so tender an organ as the womb is concerned, remind one of a crowbar. And even the most gifted surgeons, virtuosi at their job, occasionally cause great and serious injuries for which the woman often pays with her life.
Apart from the direct dangers which the operation has for women (penetration of the womb, heavy hemorrhage), i.e., dangers threatening life, there are more remote dangers threatening a woman’s health (catarrhs of the womb, sterility, pregnancy outside the womb, etc.). Such are the implications of abortion, an operation which is dangerous to the female organism and a heavy responsibility on the doctor. That is why we oppose it.
The slave-like conditions of hired labor, together with unemployment and poverty, deprive women in capitalist countries of the impulse for childbearing. Their “will to motherhood” is paralyzed. In our country all the conditions for giving birth to and bringing up a healthy generation exist. The “fear of motherhood”, the fear of the morrow, the anxiety over the child’s future are gone.
The lighthearted attitude towards the family, the feeling of irresponsibility which is still quite strong in men and women, the disgusting disrespect for women and children-all these must come before our guns. Every baseness towards women and every form of profligacy must be considered as serious antisocial acts.
Prof. M. Malinovskii.
Letter from “A Research Worker”.
“Doubts about Article I”
The government’s project of law reflects that constant care for the people’s welfare which characterizes all its measures. It does so by the promise of developing still further the nursery schools, nurseries, maternity homes-all those institutions which are there to help us in our difficult task of bearing children and of bringing them up.
And yet the project’s first article which speaks of the prohibition of abortion raises doubts. I want to express these doubts. Abortions are harmful to health. But there are a number of circumstances in everyday life which make it a heavy burden for a woman to have a large family. There are still many shortcomings in the work of the nursery schools, nurseries and communal restaurants. Our flats are often overcrowded and insufficiently equipped. Looking after the husband and even the grown-up children is hard toil for a woman. But we all want to be “working women”. The tribe of” housewives” is dying out and should, I think, become extinct.
Our life in general is improving and becoming more organized. This has already led to an increase in the birth-rate despite the fact that abortions were legal. In the capitalist countries on the other hand abortions are prohibited and the birth-rate is declining. This speaks for itself.
I think that a happy Soviet woman, assisted by the solicitude of Party and government, will herself not want to evade the joys connected with motherhood.
I fear my letter may become too long; so I will not stop to examine the other questions which relate to the strengthening of the family. I shall say only this: I should not want to live with a husband who stays with me only because he lacks the 100 rubles necessary for the divorce. I should give him the money myself
N. B.
Source: Rudolf Schlesinger, ed., Changing attitudes in Soviet Russia; the Family in the USSR (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1949), pp. 254-265.