Putin, Abortion, and Demographic Disaster

Why do women in Russia have more abortions than they do live births?  Because life in Russia sucks.  Why does it suck?  Because Vladimir Putin wants to be as notorious as Joe Stalin and the other dictators in Soviet history. For abortions to be reduced in Russia, and for a "demographic disaster" to be avoided, Putin needs to be put out to pasture.



Recently Vladimir Putin asked the pop group Boyz II Men to perform a major concert in Moscow.  His purpose--to jump start the national libido.  It won't work.

Jeffrey Last reports in The Weekly Standard that Russian women currently have 13 abortions for every live birth.  It has been called a demographic disaster, a population decline that has prompted Putin to ban adoptions by US parents.

Why would Russians be "so despondent about the future that they have 30 percent more abortions than births", as Jonathan Last asks? Because of crappy government. Russians thought when they threw off the shackles of Communism that life would get better.  I didn't really.  Because Communism never really left. It just now has a much more shiny veneer of legitimacy on top of the rot-infested particle board that is the Russian political arena.

As the Russian mafia fades from view, it becomes clear that the Putin and his coterie of former KGB officers are and were far more dominant than any gang ever was.

[There is] less difference between the current regime and the organized crime of old. Under Putin’s tight clique of former KGB officers, law enforcement agencies have become more powerful than any mafia. Extortion and racketeering are now largely the turf of tax inspectors and economic-crime police. 

“Private business is still deprived of effective protection on the part of the law enforcement system and the courts,” wrote journalist Mikhail Kozyrev on the opinion website Slon.ru. “If there is demand for fair solutions to problems, there will also be supply” from bureaucrats, police, special services and even crime bosses. “Quite law-abiding businessmen reach out to them for protection.” 

In short, the mobsters are not really gone.

So, when will women start having more children in Russia?  When the economy improves.  It will not improve until Vladimir Putin is gone.  It's high time he understand that.  But actually, I think he already does. If he allows fair elections in Russia, he'll be a government retiree.

Putin knows how to solve the problem he was put into words.  The hard part is to realize that his exit from government is a major part of the solution.