Spain: Abortion Law Reform Nearing Completion

The salient elements of this reform show a reinforcement and a will to prevent any obstacle to the culture of death.

The law lowers the age of abortion to 16 without parental consent. There were already special devices which allowed for this, but now it will be the rule. It's hard to understand that kind of logic. An abortion at that age is catastrophic, and this lowering of the age limit will promote increased promiscuity, since “there is a solution” in place.

In addition, the law also removes the three-day reflection period that currently exists between the first request and the murder of the baby, as well as the obligation to receive information on the resources and aid available in the event of the continuation of the pregnancy.

These provisions show the purely ideological character that animates the legislators. It does not matter that a woman hesitates and may decide to keep her child after reflection, she must be able to have an abortion immediately. She cannot be allowed to question her decision, if she discovers the aid that could allow her to keep her child.

The law also proposes a stigmatization of doctors opposed to abortion. In an effort to attack conscientious objection, the law creates a register of medical professionals who refuse to kill a child in its mother's womb. 

Doctors who object will be excluded from the “clinical committees” which intervene to confirm or not the serious or incurable disease of the fetus in cases where the mother invokes medical reasons to terminate the pregnancy.

Thus, the reform will prohibit doctors who have declared their conscientious objection from evaluating these cases, as well as those who have been enrolled in this register of objectors in the last three years. It is necessary to believe that the objection to abortion makes it impossible to discern certain clinical cases or that the decision can made between “reasonable” people.

Finally, health centers will distribute the morning after pill free of charge and in “sexual and reproductive health” services. At present, this pill is only available in pharmacies for the sum of around 20 euros.

As has already been said, the text must now pass before the Senate, but that is unlikely to halt the law’s passage.

This reform therefore has every chance of being carved in stone, to the great misfortune of the children sacrificed on the altar of ideology, the women who also are often victims, and all of Spanish society.