WORLD : Abortion Protest Baffles Soviets
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MOSCOW — Two dozen Americans held posters, lighted candles and heard speeches outside the U.S. Embassy in a protest of the U.S. government’s abortion policy that drew puzzled looks and laughter from Soviet passers-by.
“It’s incomprehensible! It’s absurd!” one elderly woman said after stopping to read a poster that said in Russian, “Return My Body!”
The Americans, who are studying Russian or working in Moscow, called the demonstration in advance of more than 1,000 rallies and other events by abortion rights activists in 150 U.S. cities scheduled Sunday.
One woman stopped to ask what the protest was about and when told it concerned restrictions on abortions in the United States, she said with a laugh and smile, “Come to us. We’ll do it.”
Abortion is the primary form of birth control in the Soviet Union, and each woman has an average of nine abortions.
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