Congress has definitively approved the reform of the abortion law of 2010 which, among its main measures, recovers that women aged 16 and 17 can terminate their pregnancy without the permission of their parents, guarantees that interventions are carried out carried out in public health and in the hospital closest to home and which also addresses a regulation of conscientious objection by health personnel.
The new and expanded legislation promoted by the Ministry of Equality of Irene Montero comes a week after the Constitutional Court fully endorsed the system of deadlines of the Zapatero law, after a delay of 13 years in resolving the appeal presented by the Party Popular. Precisely, this context and the turn of the popular on this issue is what has marked the final debate in Congress, with the left and Vox clamping down to corner the PP for its “updated” position and for its entanglement over whether it considers that abortion is or is not a “right” of women. The former have reproached him for acting with “electoral imposture” and the latter have accused him of “treason.”
In numbers, abortion reform has won wide-ranging support from Congress. The bill has come out with 185 votes in favor. Those of the PSOE, United We Can, ERC, PNV, EH Bildu, Más País, or Compromís, among others. They have voted against 154 deputies, those of the PP, Vox or Navarra Suma. There have been three abstentions.
The Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, takes oxygen with such a resounding approval of her abortion law in the midst of the crisis of attrition that she is suffering with the reductions in sentences for sexual offenders due to the law of only if it is yes, that they are on the way of the 550. He has not wanted to allude to this matter explicitly but he has done so indirectly to try to support his thesis that everything that is happening with the law on sexual freedom is a consequence of the “resistance” of the reactionary sectors to correctly apply feminist laws.
In this way, Montero has warned that the same thing will happen with the abortion law: “There will be resistance to the application of the law, just as there will be to all feminist laws,” he said, adding that now “it is time to work hard with the autonomous communities, health centers or competent administrations so that there are enough personnel to perform abortions or allow sexual education in all schools and be able to “comply with the law despite resistance”.
For the rest, the minister has celebrated the culmination of the project and the strength of the feminist majority in Congress: “Safe abortion and in the public so as not to die, contraceptives so as not to abort and comprehensive sexual education to decide, be free and be happy” .
For its part, the PSOE has taken advantage of the debate to delve into the internal debate in the PP on abortion and to charge against the party for the “show” it is giving on whether it considers it a right or not. “Gentlemen of the PP, they are not fooling anyone because they have had the abortion law appealed for 13 years,” criticized Laura Berja, who has branded the new discourse of the popular supporters as “electoral imposture”. For the rest, and in the midst of an internal war with United We Can by the law of only yes is yes, the Andalusian deputy has vindicated her party. “The PSOE has been the political support of the legal structure of women’s rights in this country and, yes, it continues to be,” she has sentenced.
The PP has justified its rejection of the bill as “untimely”, “unnecessary”, “infantilizing”, “intolerant” and “intrudent”. Among other issues, Marta González has pointed out the party’s opposition to girls aged 16 and 17 being able to abort without their parents’ permission or that the new regulations are going to eliminate the obligation to provide information to women who want to terminate their pregnancy. In addition, the people’s deputy has warned of the risks that exist when this Ministry of Equality touches on a law due to “the probability that the disaster will spread.” Reason for which she has invited Montero to resign due to the consequences of the law of only yes is yes.
While the PSOE, Unidas Podemos, ERC or Más País have attacked the PP from the left for again opposing an abortion law, from their right they have also received artillery discharge from Vox for having “submissively” submitted to the postulates of the left and for being “directly responsible” for not having repealed the 2010 law and having contributed to the change of mentality about that rule. Now, Lourdes Méndez Monasterio has had an impact, Feijóo “consummates his betrayal” for accepting what Vox calls “the maximum expression of barbarism.”
Regarding the content, the new law establishes guarantees so that abortions can be performed in public health throughout Spain and requires that there be personnel available to do so in all hospitals. In addition, it makes a regulation of the conscientious objection of health personnel, in the mirror of the one that was already launched with the approval of euthanasia. Protocols such as the elimination of the three days of reflection are also changed.
Beyond the issue of abortion, the law establishes measures on maternity, such as prenatal leave for mothers from the 39th week of gestation, or on sexual health, such as the free distribution of the morning-after pill, sexual education in the school centers or absence from work due to menstruation with disabling pain.
These are the keys to the new law:
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
