The Spanish government on Tuesday took the first legal step to challenge a conservative-led region’s decision to introduce new rules aimed at discouraging women from seeking abortions.
(Bloomberg) — The Spanish government on Tuesday took the first legal step to challenge a conservative-led region’s decision to introduce new rules aimed at discouraging women from seeking abortions.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s left-leaning cabinet approved an order demanding that Castilla y Leon, just north of Madrid, withdraw the measures within the next two months, or face a showdown in country’s constitutional court.
“We are going to fight and defend women’s rights and prevent any autonomous government from rolling back rights and freedoms,” government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez told reporters. “We are not giving an inch.”
Pregnant women weighing an abortion will be given the option of listening to their fetuses’ heart beat or watching their ultrasound, under the measures unveiled late last week by the Popular Party and its coalition partner, the far-right Vox party. The right of public doctors not to perform abortions, as “conscientious objectors,” will be protected.
Spain was staunchly conservative when it emerged from dictatorship in the late 1970s, and is now one of Europe’s most progressive democracies. While most Spaniards don’t oppose abortion according to the most recent surveys, Catholicism still holds influence over parts of the population. And with regional and municipal votes set for May ahead of a general election later this year, social issues like this one are becoming increasingly politicized.
A similar divide between liberals and conservatives is hardening across the rest of the European Union, but the Castilla y Leon rules are the first example of an attempt to rollback abortion rights in Western Europe since the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to Keina Yoshida, a legal adviser at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“What we see in this Spanish region is a reminder that we should not take the protection of abortion rights for granted,” Yoshida said. The measures went into effect on Monday.
Just after the US ruling in June, French President Emmanuel Macron said safe and legal access to abortion should be added to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. France has since inched closer to enshrining those rights in its own constitution. Poland and Hungary, meanwhile, have made it harder for women to get abortions, and in Italy there are fears that new right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will follow suit.
Spain liberalized its reproductive laws in 2010 to allow abortion up until the 14th week of pregnancy. About four years later, the Popular Party— the ruling party at the time — abandoned an attempt to criminalize the procedure after meeting widespread opposition.
These latest measures are reminiscent of steps taken by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose government wrote a new constitution in 2011 guaranteeing that “the life of a fetus will be protected from conception,” then in September announced a decree that forces women to listen to their unborn child’s heartbeat before an abortion.
“The anti-abortion movement in Europe gained power and momentum after what happened in the United States,” said Karolina Szopa, a lecturer with Bournemouth University who specializes in human rights. “The strategy of these groups is to make abortion more difficult and restrict access before moving for legal restrictions.”
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In Spain, a national healthcare workers organization, called the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health, was among those that weighed in with criticism.
“We totally reject these measures that involve subjecting women to intolerable pressure and humiliation,” it said in a statement. They are “a violation of laws such as patient autonomy, the right to privacy and respect for their decisions.”
Castilla y Leon regional Vice President Juan Garcia-Gallardo, a senior Vox member, was defiant on Monday, saying in a Twitter post that the central government was trying to fabricate a scandal to divert attention from real problems caused by the country’s mismanagement and that it is afraid of mothers having more information about their pregnancies.
The dispute points up the high level of polarization in Spanish politics, said Irene Delgado, a political science professor with UNED University in Madrid, adding that it also “shows the campaign is in full swing ahead of the regional vote which will be a bellwether for the general election.”
(Updates with government comment in second and third paragraphs.)
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