The news from Russia does not get better. On 20 July, representatives of “traditional religious confessions, public organisations, political and patriotic movements, and specialists providing services in the field of the protection of motherhood and childhood in Novosibirsk and the Novosibirsk Oblast, doctors, and the teaching and parental communities” took part in a roundtable entitled: “Abortion and its state funding as factors undermining the sovereignty of Russia and threatening its national security”.The round table was held to support the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to the State Duma on 22 January 2015 to remove abortion from the compulsory medical insurance system because the great majority of abortions are not done for medical reasons.According to the participants, the question of increasing the population is one of the survival of a sovereign state. Therefore the issue of abortions in Russia, due to their prevalence, acquires the character of a national threat in terms of the demographic crisis. Some of the participants called for law reform to protect the lives of unborn childrenSOURCE: Russian Public Line (in Russian) and Paroslavie RU (in English), 10 August 2016+ PHOTO: Media Diversity – police attacked this demonstration on 8 March 2013