SPAIN: The controversy surrounding a proposed reform of abortion rights
AFP – Victory of the right to life for anti-abortion, back to the Franco era to another, the Spanish right has amplified the controversy over abortion, considering a ban voluntary termination of pregnancy in cases of malformation.
Singing "We give life, we decide" and "not one step back", a hundred people, mostly women, protested Sunday in central Madrid against the draft reform, calling a group of associations for women's rights.
"This seems to be a return to the Franco dictatorship and we do not want under any circumstances accept measures that would deprive us of our rights," said Justa Montero, member of the Assembly e feminist groups a rally organizers.
The Spanish government confirmed Friday want to change back to the law passed in 2010 under the socialist government (2004-2011) that allows any woman to abort up to 14 weeks.
It also allows termination of pregnancy (abortion) up to 22 weeks in cases of "risk to life and health" of the mother or "severe malformation of the fetus" and limitless time, on the advice of an ethics committee, in severe cases.
But the recent words of Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon have been a bombshell in the associations of women's rights and pro-abortion.
"I do not understand that it prevents a fetus to live by allowing abortion, for the simple fact that he suffers from a disability or deformity," said Mr. Ruiz-Gallardon in an interview last Sunday with right-wing daily La Razon.
Friday, he drove home the point, referring to the texts of the UN and Article 10 of the Convention on Disability Rights, which reaffirms the need "to adopt all necessary measures to guarantee their rights to people with disabilities ".
"It is the height of cynicism," retorts Barambio Santiago, president of the association of clinics specializing in abortion, Acai, and one of the fathers of the law of 2010 on abortion.
On the contrary, "the UN in all international conferences, all the health agencies of the UN, the World Health Organization, the Council of Europe, say not to restrict abortion" , says he told AFP.
"What Gallardon wants is to prohibit, in fact, abortion, in line with Ireland, Poland and Malta." "It's not a surprise when you consider that it is Gallardon father who had contested the previous 1985 law" allowing abortion in cases of rape, deformed fetus or danger to health of the mother, he adds.
According to Mr. Barambio, the Minister "occupies the field of the far right ultra-Catholic may be a minority but economically powerful, such as Opus Dei," Catholic organization established in the upper echelons of political and economic Spain.
The Forum for Family denounces him "the dictatorship of the pseudo-progressive salon who kneel before the slavishly politically correct lobbies artificially defined by ideological and economic gutter."
Ban abortion for malformation is "rather a step forward for the protection of human life", for his part said the AFP Gador Joya, a spokeswoman for "Right to live".
Remains that banning abortion would lead to "what women who have money to go abroad and those who do not resort to illegal abortion" with risk Sanitary very high for women, says Barambio.
A large majority of Spaniards, 81 percent are against the ban on abortion in the case of malformation of the fetus, according to a poll published Sunday by the daily El Pais.
The reform proposal was rejected by 65% who said they voted for the Popular Party (PP, conservative) in the general election last year as well than 64% of those who claim to be practicing Catholics, according to this survey.
