Spaniards protest ‘dictatorial’ abortion law reform

Spain’s conservative government has provoked a storm among women’s groups with plans to tighten abortion laws that make the procedure illegal in cases where the foetus is deformed.

Hundreds took part in a rally in Madrid’s central Tirso de Molina square to protest against the proposed reform, which they say will take Spain back to the era of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.

The crowd, mostly women, chanted: “We give birth, we decide,” and: “Not one step back.”

“It seems to us to be a throwback to the Franco dictatorship and we are not willing to accept measures that will take away our rights,” said Justa Montero, member of the Feminist Assembly, one of the women’s groups that organised the protest.

The government said it would alter an abortion law introduced by its Socialist predecessors in 2010 which gave women the legal right to abortion on demand for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The law also gave women the legal right to abort up to the 22nd week of pregnancy in cases where the mother’s health is at risk or the foetus shows serious deformities.

In cases of extreme malformation of a foetus, an abortion could be carried out at any time if approved by an ethics committee.

But justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said the law should be changed to ban abortion in cases of a deformed foetus.

“I don’t understand why we should deprive a foetus of life by allowing abortion for the simple reason that it suffers a handicap or a deformity,” he said.

The vast majority of Spaniards, 81%, are against banning abortion in cases where a foetus is malformed, according to a poll published in left-wing newspaper El Pais.

The reform was rejected by 65% of those who said they voted for the Popular Party in a general election last year, as well as by 64% of those who identify as practicing Catholics.

“The minister’s proposal is totally cynical,” said Montero.

“He demonstrates a concern that then is not followed up with other measures. He makes this statement at the same time as the government is cutting funding to services for handicapped people and children with deformities.”

Santiago Barambio, head of the Spanish association of abortion clinics and one of the authors of the 2010 abortion law, said Ruiz-Gallardon was appealing to his party’s right wing.

“The minister represents the extreme right and the ultra-Catholics, which are perhaps a minority but are very powerful economically,” said Barambio.

Anti-abortion groups welcomed the planned abortion law reform.

Gador Joya, spokesman for the Right to Life collective, said banning abortion in cases of a malformed foetus “is a step forward for the protection of the right to life”.

“But it is not enough, because we believe that 97% of the abortions carried out for other reasons are carried out under false pretences,” he added.

Before the 2010 abortion reform, a woman only could have an abortion in cases of rape, serious deformity, or when her mental or physical health was threatened.