“A child does not require major financial expenses”: How Belarusian women are pressured before abortions

Women in Belarus have the right to have an abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or during the first 22 weeks in cases involving “social indications”. Before that, however, they are required to undergo “counselling”, which the Belarusian medical community White Coats has likened to “moral rape”. The guidelines for this “counselling” contain a number of absurd recommendations.