Christina (right), one of workers at Women's Support Centers. Women's Support Center volunteers present "Choose Life" lectures to students in local schools.

Abortion is an epidemic in Russia. Recent statistics on abortion in the Russian state of Primorye, where Vladivostok is located, show just under three abortions occurring for every one live birth. In 1995 in Russia, a country of only 160 million people, there were 2.13 million abortions. The average Russian woman has between three and seven abortions. Some women have had as many as 20 or 30, using abortion as the sole means of birth control for all of their childbearing years. The majority of teen pregnancies, of which there are hundreds each year, end in abortion, usually at the advice of the girls' doctors.

The effectiveness of the "Choose Life" seminars is due largely to the cooperation of public school administrators, who have given "Choose Life" the freedom to present the complete truth to public school science classes, regardless of how unpleasant it may be. Videos include ultrasound footage; the German production Life Before Birth; the Family of the Americas Foundation cartoon If You Love Me, Show Me; Dr. Bernard Nathanson's classic Silent Scream and its gruesome sequel, Eclipse of Reason; and the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's short but shocking Hard Truth. (Of course, no student is forced to watch any of the videos.)

Yuri claims his biggest problem with the seminars is the lack of positive materials on chastity. Any ideas or suggestions for chastity materials would be graciously accepted. Submit your comments and ideas here.

Natural Family Planning Instead of Contraception

The "Choose Life" unit on Natural Family Planning educates the youth about their biological make-up and the fact that while men are fertile all the time, women are fertile only during the ovulatory stage of their monthly cycle. Understanding this, the girls especially come to realize the difference between working with nature to purposefully achieve or prevent conception, and trusting in man-made drugs and contraptions to outwit Mother Nature.

In addition, the students hear the truth about contraception: that the Pill and the IUD are abortifacients; that latex products, including condoms, contain microscopic pores often less microscopic than the germs and the sperms they are made to keep out; and that the only 100% effective method of avoiding pregnancy is abstinence.

A grant to Most Holy Mother of God Catholic Church allowed for the translation and printing of the Family of the Americas Foundation's book Love and Fertility, which the girls find helpful for further educating themselves about Natural Family Planning. Knowing the abortion rate in Russia, they find the idea of sexual self-determination attractive and worthy of sharing with others.

"Choose Life" Displays

"Choose Life" has been given permission to place educational display boards in several state-run women's clinics and gynecological consultation offices in Vladivostok—places where women are regularly counseled to abort their children. The first two displays, "The Miracle of Life vs. Abortion" and "Natural Family Planning," continue to present women with alternatives to contraception and abortion.

A "young one" model was stolen from a display the first week it was up. About eight months later, a color pamphlet on fetal development was ripped off one of the boards, but not as a means of vandalism; rather, it appeared as if someone wanted to take the information home. "Choose Life" is permitted to leave flyers in the clinics where its boards are displayed, but due to limited funding, the only flyers they can make available are what they can produce on a Xerox machine.

The Center for Family and Group Therapy also invited "Choose Life" not only to display its alternative information, but to use a room in its new office free of charge. "Choose Life" hired its first paid employee, a 39-year-old biology teacher named Nina Peretrukhina, to staff the new office. Nina was baptized into the Catholic Church after a conversion that began with a "Choose Life" seminar in her classroom. Nina is already working toward teacher certification in Natural Family Planning.