MOSCOW, July 1 (RAPSI) – Russia’s State Duma on Tuesday adopted in the second and third readings a bill on penalties for illegal abortion.

The bill stipulates fines of 4,000 to 5,000 rubles ($148) for individuals, 10,000-30,000 ruble ($887) fines for officials and 100,000-150,000 ruble ($4,432) fines for legal entities. Previously, the proposed fine for officials had been close to 1 million rubles ($29,548). Previously, the proposed fine for officials had been close to 1 million rubles ($29,548).

Oleg Filippov, Deputy Head of the Department for Medical Care of Children and Obstetrics in the Healthcare Ministry, noted that the number of abortions had recently decreased from over a million to 880,000 a year. However, the data do not include private clinics.

Committee member Vladimir Ponevezhsky suggested that private clinics need to provide abortion statistics and should be penalized for failure to do so, so that the government can have complete data on the yearly abortion rate.