The World - News from Feb. 14, 1988

The Soviet Union, where the average woman has four abortions in her lifetime, has eased its abortion law, extending the termination period from 12 to 28 weeks and permitting a wider range of non-medical reasons including death or imprisonment of the father, Meditsinskaya Gazeta, the official newspaper of the country’s medical unions, said. One of the major reasons for the change is to cut down on illegal operations that often end in death or sterility of the patient, the newspaper said. Unofficial estimates say that up to 80% of all pregnancies in the Soviet Union are aborted. The rate of the United States is about 30%.