Protesters Out In Force To Oppose Spain's New Abortion Bill
Spain News
Published: 22 January 2014 11:55 CET
Updated: 20 December 2019 12:55 CET
The controversial amendments proposed for Spanish abortion legislation have come under criticism from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy last week. Although the reforms were initially agreed by the government, heated protests have since taken place across Spain since the reforms were made public and this led to the PM stating that the author of the legislation should give more credence to opinions voiced by other members of the cabinet.
The proposed amendments will effectively make it illegal to undergo an abortion for any reason other than a pregnancy caused by rape or if the pregnancy will result in psychological damage to the mother. This rolls the law back to the pre-socialist era, when it was almost impossible to obtain an abortion legally.
The law was reviewed in 2010 by the socialist government and this gave women the flexibility to obtain an abortion by choice, as long as it was within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Rights groups say that the current move to reverse the law is archaic and an affront to personal choice and the liberty of women to decide whether they wish to go through with a pregnancy - a choice which should be down to the individual.
