This pen-and-ink image shows the trace of a pendulum swinging back and forth, the middle blurry and only the extremes of the swing clear. Image Credit: “Pendulum Swing”, by DK Osorio
In 1985, Spain passed laws restricting a woman’s right to abortion, the so-called “Organic Law” governing reproductive health and abortion. Under this law, abortion was legal in only three cases: serious risk to physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, in which case abortion was supposed to be therapeutic; rape; and the presence of malformations or defects in the fetus. No other reasons were allowed for legal abortions taking place in Spain. Those seeking abortions needed the wherewithal to leave the country. Both pregnant women who procured abortions, and medical personnel who performed them, could be imprisoned for doing so (this was apparently rare, but possible).
In 2010, after decades without a right to seek abortion for any reason other than health, rape, or fetal deformity, a revision to the Organic Law went into effect and Spanish women were finally given a right to so-called “abortion on demand.” Debate over the passage of the law heavily involved the notion that access to safe abortion was a matter of reproductive health. As of March 3, 2010, up to 14 weeks gestation, Spanish women can now choose to terminate the pregnancy for any reason. Within that time period, abortion is wholly decriminalized (for context, most U.S. states allow abortion for any reason up to anywhere from 20-24 weeks; some have proposed 14 week cutoffs but those are still in development because of the 1973 court case Roe v. Wade, which made it a matter of federal case law that states could not make abortion wholesale illegal until after the point of “viability”). Abortion can occur up to 22 weeks if there is a serious risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman or fetus, and thereafter only if fetal anomalies incompatible with life, or some other serious and incurable fetal disease, are detected. According to Spain’s own Ministry of Health, these abortions up to 14 weeks gestation constitute over 90 percent of all abortions carried out in Spain in 2012, the remainder of which involved medical grounds for termination later in pregnancy. The rights of women in Spain to access abortion without fear of prosecution were greatly expanded (though it should be noted that rates of abortion did not increase substantially for 2011, and went down in 2012; this is variously attributed to causes including women claiming health risks for any unwanted pregnancy prior to 2010, and to increased availability of the morning after pill at the same time the new law took effect).
The ire of Spain’s conservative religious and political forces was roused. Indeed, a large rally of several tens of thousands of people protested against the 2010 law in Madrid, prior to its passage. Other protests against the expansion of abortion access continue to take place, such as this one in Barcelona in 2012.
An October 2012 pro-life protest in Barcelona, Spain with signs in both Spanish and English (perhaps for the foreign press). Slogans read “aborta cero” (roughly: zero abortions) and signs show an image of a child’s hands with the message “soy innocente” (“I am innocent”). The protesters are against a 2010 expansion of abortion access in Spain. Many of the people in the image, both men and women, are older and have white hair. Others are younger and have dark hair. Image Credit: David Berkowitz.
Many vowed to see the 2010 changes to the Organic Law overturned, including the Catholic Church in Spain and the People’s Party. Within a few years of the expansion of abortion access, forces within the Spanish government, influenced by conservative religious values, indeed began attempting to rally support to once again tighten access to abortion. Protests against these efforts began in 2012.
A young woman protesting against plans to again restrict abortion access, in Madrid in 2012. She has tied her t-shirt in a knot just under her chest and written the slogan “Judges and priests away from my body” in Spanish on her belly, emphasis on the “my.” Image Credit: AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
In December of 2013, the issue came to a head with the Spanish government publishing draft legislation “for the protection of the life of the fetus and of the rights of pregnant women (Anteproyecto de ley orgánica para la protección de la vida del concebido y de los derechos de la mujer embarazada). As you can guess from the title, both fetuses and pregnant women undergoing abortion are considered under the draft legislation to be “victims.”
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The new law would be amongst the most restrictive in the world, making abortion illegal except in the case of rape or when there’s a risk to the pregnant woman’s physical and mental health. Proving either exception was the case would require two separate doctors’ testimony, neither of whom is allowed to participate in the actual procedure. Note that this requires women who have been raped or who are facing serious health risks to find more than one physician, be examined by more than one physician, have documentation produced by more than one physician, and have it processed by the appropriate legal authorities because permission could be granted to a third physician to proceed with the abortion. According to Francisca Garcia of Spain’s Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics, about 100,000 of the 118,000 abortions carried out in 2012 would be illegal under the new legislation.
Protests in Spain against the draft legislation were… creative. In December of 2013, over 1,000 people marched on the Justice Ministry and burned a life-size effigy of the Minister of Justice, who backs the draft legislation. Topless women of the group Femen painted their heads and torsos to look like skeletons and marched in protest, some with messages on their chests and bellies such as “tu moral, mi muerte” (roughly: your morality, my death) and “pro vida = pro muerte” (roughly: pro-life = pro-death, referring to the health effects on women of restricting access to legal abortion). Hundreds of everyday Spanish women went into regional government offices in which cars and other property such as airplanes are to be registered demanding to have their bodies officially registered as belonging to, or being fair game for monitoring by, the government, since this is how they would be treated under the draft legislation if it were to pass. In February of 2013, Madrid police said over 15,000 Spaniards—mostly women and some men, including toddlers and senior citizens organized by many groups from all over the nation—protested in the streets of Madrid against the rollback and in favor of current access to abortion. A variant of the belly-scrawled message above showed up on protest signs reading “My ovaries: not those of priests, nor of politicians.” One woman, who asked a reporter to remain nameless, explained she had woken up at 5 am to make the 280-mile journey from her home to Madrid. She said it was important that she be here today because 30 years earlier she had travelled to London for an abortion: “This is my fight… I didn’t speak a word of English. But I didn’t know what else to do.” A mother of two children already, her contraception had failed during sex with her husband and they both agreed they could not raise a third child.
Demonstrators in favor of increased abortion access from across Spain wave signs in Madrid. One reads “todos unidos por nuestros derechos” (“all united for our rights”) and others bear a common slogan seen at these protests, “Madre, Libre!” (roughly: “mother, be free!”). Another common slogan: “Laica, de todos” (roughly: “Secularism, for all”), rejecting the imposition of a particular religious morality through law. Image Credit: Dani Pozo/AFP/Getty Images
The law has not yet passed, but it looks set to do so sometime this summer; it was originally supposed to be considered in the Spring, then sometime in June, but I can find no record of its introduction or a vote in the English-language press. Passage is likely, at least possible, because the draft legislation is backed by Spain’s conservative Popular Party which has long sought to overturn the 2010 reform, is closely allied with the Catholic Church, and holds a majority in the Spanish legislature. As BBC4 presenter and Telegraph columnist Cathy Newman wrote on March 6 of 2014, domestic political considerations within Spain are driving the back-and-forth on abortion regulation:
…what’s intriguing is why the protesters have had to work so hard to make politicians hear them. Because polls suggest that between 70 and 80 per cent of Spanish citizens are opposed to the law change. It’s astonishing to see a government embrace such an unpopular policy… the entire exercise looks very much like a political calculation by the Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, keen to placate his right-wingers. Unusually in Spanish politics, some of his own MPs oppose the bill… One promise Mr. Rajoy made in order to win in 2011 was to overturn that same legislation. Now, under pressure from rightwing factions in his party, he plans to deliver…
To be clear, Newman is not indicating that this is just a political exercise, sturm und drang signifying nothing. While it may be a political move, it is entirely real. And deeply held conservative moral beliefs on the part of some Spaniards are at odds with deeply held beliefs on reproductive and women’s rights on the part of other Spaniards. If passed, the law will have very real and immediate effects, rolling back Spanish law on reproductive rights and access to abortion to an earlier—yet startlingly recent by some standards—era.
On May 9, 2014, a letter was sent to Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, Spain’s Minister of Justice, by representatives of 6 separate human and reproductive rights groups, some of which themselves are umbrella organizations for other rights groups: Alianza por la Solidaridad; Center for Reproductive Rights; The European NGOs for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Population and Development (EuroNGOs); Federación de Planificación Familiar Estatal; Human Rights Watch; and Rights Interational Spain. The letter argued against the draft legislation, citing legal concerns and health concerns, including the World Health Organizations recommendations to prevent unsafe abortions which include that “prompt, safe abortion services… be provided on the basis of a woman’s complain rather than requiring forensic evidence or police examination” (necessary to prove a claim of rape). The letter ended by noting that the proposed changes in law would “disproportionately affect those without the means to access safe abortion services abroad.”
Is the Minister of Justice the right person to be receiving this letter? Has he any power, even if persuaded, to interfere with the passage of legislation? It may be a moot point: at his first appearance before Spain’s parliament as Minister of Justice in January 2012, Ruiz-Gallardón announced his intention to overturn the 2010 revision to the Organic Law. What of the Popular Party’s use of their representative majority to push forward on a position which by no means represents a majority of Spaniards on this particular issue? Suppose a majority of Spaniards were in favor of going back to more restrictive laws. Would that make it alright?
There are serious issues at stake in Spain today regarding women’s reproductive health, reproductive rights, and their ability to control the time and manner of their own reproduction. Under a more restrictive law than the one now in effect, such as the draft legislation, women and men who hold particular views on reproduction will impose those on all women (recall the protest signs in favor of expanded abortion access which urge laica, secularism). Under the law as it stands, Spanish women whose personal conscience allows them to pursue an abortion can, within the gestational limits, do so without having to seek the approval of others or bow to another’s notion of morality. Spanish women whose personal conscience forbids them from pursuing an abortion can continue to not pursue it.
Given such pluralism in Spanish views on abortion, can such an imposition be justified in a democracy? Will the pendulum swing?
