Massive protests in Spain against the Government’s plans of exacerbating the abortion laws have shown results today: Prime Minister Rajoy has had to abandon these plans and the conservative Minister of Justice, Ruiz-Gallardón, who had been responsible for the draft of the bill, has resigned.
The drafted law, against which the protests were directed, meant to criminalize abortion and to punish the personnel carrying out abortions with imprisonment and occupational bans.
The relatively recent and, by comparison, quite liberal law, which makes legal an abortion within the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy and in exceptional cases allows for an abortion up to the 22nd week, had passed parliament only in 2010. In the future minors will still need to get their parents’ permission for an abortion.
The withdrawal of the bill by the Government regarding this question which is so crucial for women since an unwanted pregnancy can be a matter of life and death, was due to the divided spirits among the members of the conservative party itself. It is a signal to all the forces in Europe that are trying to roll back even the rudiments of women’s rights to self-determination. And it encourages us to further keep on the agenda the interests of the majority against those of the minority.
We congratulate the women of Spain on this historical victory and hope that the manifestations of solidarity we organised all over Europe have strengthened their resistance and thus have contributed to this success.