A demonstration was held in Kyiv on April 8 to protest a draft law limiting the rights of women to abortion. The bill, if passed, would allow abortions only in cases of rape, when a pregnancy presents a threat to the life of the mother, or when the child is unlikely to be able to survive past birth. In all cases an abortion would only be permitted during the first 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Under Ukraine’s current legislation a woman can decide to have an abortion at any time during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. After 12 weeks abortion is possible in certain cases as prescribed by law.
Protest organizers wrote on their Facebook page that limiting the right to abortion would lead to a spike in the procedure being carried out illegally and said that such a law would be like throwing Ukraine into a “totalitarian dictatorship.”
