Christian and Islamic clerics demand total ban on abortion in Russia

The top Christian and Muslim clerics in Russia have signed a petition calling for a total ban on abortions, assisted reproduction and the use of contraceptives with abortifacient effects.

The Russian Orthodox Church announced on Tuesday that the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has discussed with pro-life activists and signed the petition which has already gathered about 500,000 signatures.

Kirill was supported by the top Islamic Mufti of Russia, Talgat Tadjuddin, who said that he is willing to add his signature on the petition because he believes that abortion "is child murder," Newsweek reported. 

Abortion is currently legal in Russia within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In cases of rape, it is legal to abort the pregnancy within the first 22 weeks.

"We, the citizens of the Russian Federation, support the scrapping of our country's existing practice of legal killing of children before birth," the petition declares.

A spokesman for the church claimed that the petition was only a request to exclude abortions from state-funded health care coverage, not a legal ban.

Anna Kuznetsova, who was recently appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the children's ombudsman, also supports the ban, claiming that abortion can lead to drug and alcohol addictions as well as depression, Express reported.

Legislators are already preparing draft laws as a response to the campaign. Sergei Chesnokov, head of the pro-life group For Life, said that the signatures will be submitted to Putin after it reaches one million.

"We had hundreds of thousands signing the petition. It will be millions signing it after the patriarch," said one petition organizer.

Russian MP Gennady Noschenko warned against the ban. He believes that women in desperate situations will go ahead with an abortion despite the ban and said that it will pose a huge risk to a woman's health.