The parliament had been discussing restricting abortion. It had hardened drug laws to the point where pain relief had become virtually inaccessible, even for people with documented severe pain. Roughly half of more than a million inmates of Russian prisons were serving time for drug offenses, because even a minuscule amount could land one behind bars. As new laws piled up, political discussion, such as it was, centered on the need to protect children: from drugs, from abortions, and, perhaps most important, from pedophiles. Masha could not remember when she had first heard about the pedophile
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