Russia Entering Cultural Abyss – Close to Two Percent of Potential Population Aborted Every Year
“The scale of social and cultural rot in contemporary Russian society is truly staggering,” Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and editor of the Journal of International Security Affairs, told The Daily Caller in an email interview about his new book, “Implosion: The End of Russia and What it Means for America,” to be released Monday.
“Take abortion, for instance. According to official estimates, almost 1.2 million abortions are performed in Russia every year. That equals out to 300 babies every hour. According to unofficial projections, however, the true abortion rate could be as much as double that figure — which means that close to 2 percent of Russia’s potential population is being terminated every year!”
“Equally grim statistics can be found in the state of national health, in its alcoholism and drug addiction rates, and in its failing struggle to contain HIV/AIDS,” he continued. “It’s no wonder that one in five Russians now wants to live abroad — and almost half of Russians between the ages of 18 and 35 are actively considering doing so. Russia, simply put, is a dying project — and the Russians themselves know it.”
But the cultural rot is only part of Russia’s problem, Berman says. He says the country is imploding because its “population is constricting by close to half-a-million people every year as a result of both death and emigration;” because its population is “transforming” in that its “radicalizing” Muslim minority “isn’t facing the same demographic stressors as its Slavic majority is;” and because of the ”challenge from China.”
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