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  • Title: Soviet immigration in Israel: consequences for family planning and abortion services.
    Author: Sabatello EF.
    Journal: Plan Parent Eur; 1991 Sep; 20(2):9-11. PubMed ID: 12284556.
    Abstract:
    The massive influx of Soviet immigrants to Israel is expected to significantly increase the number of application for a legal abortion (AFLA). In 1990, about 200,000 people, most of them from the USSR, immigrated to Israel. This group included almost 50,000 women of childbearing age. In the USSR, abortion is extremely frequent. Estimates of the number of legal and illegal abortions for 1988 range from 9.5-11 million. An average Soviet women has close to 5 abortions during her lifetime. Some of the reasons for such a high rate of abortion include the lack of available contraceptives, the exaggeration of the possible dangers of modern contraceptives on the part of Soviet physicians, and the social and psychological acceptance of abortion by Soviet women as a routine medical procedure. Considering the number of AFLA from earlier Soviet immigrants, requests for abortions will increase. Data from 1988 indicates that USSR-born Israeli women (who arrived during a wave of immigration in the 1970s) had a general rate of AFLA 26% higher than the total rate for Jewish Israeli women. And for women age 20-29, the AFLA rate was 50% higher for USSR-born women than for Israeli women. The article estimates that the wave of new arrivals will lead to a 10% increase in the number of AFLA. The new wave of Soviet immigrants means that the government will need to expand its family planning services. The immediate implication of the family planning services. The immediate implication of the influx, though, is that the government will need to establish additional abortion medical committees to guarantee fair access to abortion. But since many of the would be aborting Soviet women are married, many will not meet the current abortion law criteria, and this will lead to an increase in the number of illegal abortions.
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