Abortion in Kazakhstan is legal as an elective procedure up to 12 weeks, and special circumstances afterwards. The relevant legislation is based on the laws inherited from the country's Soviet past, when abortion was legally permitted as a contraceptive.
Laws
The laws regulating abortion in Kazakhstan are the Reproductive Rights Law (2004), the Criminal Code (1997) and the Ministry of Health Medical and Social Indications for Abortion (2008).
Abortion is legal in the following cases:
If the pregnant woman's health is at risk in one of the following ways, the approval of a committee of three health professionals (a gynecologist, the head of the institution, and an expert on her condition) is required, and that the illness be on an approved list. If the woman's life is at risk, with no limit as to gestational age. If the woman's health could be significantly harmed, with no limit as to gestational age. If the woman's mental health is at risk. Upon request, for whatever reason, including reasons such as pregnancy from an incestuous relationship. If the pregnant woman has a cognitive or intellectual disability. Pregnancy in a minor, requiring parental permission or that of another adult.
Legal abortions are provided in private centers, Women's Consulting Centers, Maternity Houses, Polyclinics with Women's Consulting Offices, many hospitals and Family Group Practices. Second-trimester abortions can only be performed in perinatal centers, maternity houses and multi-regional hospitals.
The state provides measures to ensure that abortions are safe, and obliges a pregnant woman considering an abortion to be assessed. Providers of illegal abortions are sanctioned. Contraceptives are provided following an abortion.
History
Information on the prevalence of abortion in Kazakhstan comes primarily from two sources: the Ministry of Health and the Demographic and Health Survey of Kazakhstan. High-quality surveys and other data are available, since the procedure has been legal for some time. However, reports are occasionally contradictory.
Soviet Kazakhstan
For most of the 20th century, due to state support, the main method of contraception used in the Soviet Union was abortion.
In 1920, the Soviet Union legalized abortion upon request as a temporary measure, because in the state of economic crisis, legal abortions would be a necessary measure to ensure sanitary conditions. In Kazakhstan, the native Kazakhs were opposed. Over the following decade, anti-abortion would be an important current among Kazakhs, framed as a cultural bastion attacked by Soviet (generally Slavic) officials. Even during the period of legalization, Russian authorities applauded Kazakh resistance to abortion. Physicians warned that there were health risks associated with frequent resort to abortion. During the period when abortion was legal, it was not practiced as legislators had intended – clinics did not receive funding and patients were forced to pay. Abortions were mainly had by ethnic Russian women in the Kazakhstan region (a mere 0.002% of abortions were performed on ethnic Kazakh women, primarily in urban areas).
For Kazakhs, abortion was taboo, although there were traditional methods practiced involving herbal abortifacients. The number of abortions performed increased in Kazakhstan as it did in Russia, with a particular increase between 1927 and 1928 provoked by the increase in available information about the surgical procedure and the change in morality. Illegal abortions began to decline and the increased abortion rate began to worry officials, such that officials began to distrust the practice of legal abortion, which led to it being banned.
Illegal abortions occurred when doctors refused to perform abortions for one of the following health reasons: pregnancies past the first trimester, first pregnancies, or for those with dangerous medical conditions. The fact that legally available abortions did not totally eliminate illegal abortions contributed to the Soviet decision to criminalize. At the start of the 1930s, Soviet officials openly criticized abortion and its legalization. In peripheral areas of the USSR, including Kazakhstan, there was concern over the effects of sudden prohibition among those who defended a gradual prohibition and even education about other contraceptive methods.