When I call the Kharkiv Pregnancy Assistance Center, I hear a sympathetic woman’s voice in the receiver. Iryna* she introduces herself, as I slowly explain my situation: I am a 20-year-old student and an internally displaced person who was raped. I am now pregnant and thinking about accessing an abortion, which has been legal in Ukraine since the 1950s.
Iryna’s tone changes. Abortion is not an option, in her view. Instead, she pushes me to turn to religion and tells me to go confess at church. “It is impossible to kill and be happy,” she says, suggesting that even if I got pregnant from a rapist, I am still carrying a “child born of God and his blood”.
She said my “ability to love” would also be affected. “It is better to give him life than to get breast cancer or uterus cancer,” she added, incorrectly claiming that after an abortion, these are “risks that await you at every corner”.
