CAMPAIGNING IN the run-up to last December’s elections which brought him to power, Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy promised to row back on a liberal 2010 abortion law brought in by the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Now, news reports suggest, Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party (PP) government will make good on that promise in October, amending provisions in the 2010 legislation that allow foetal deformity to be considered a ground for abortion up to 22 weeks into a pregnancy. In a recent interview justice minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardon also said he would introduce a requirement for parental consent for 16- and 17-year-olds seeking abortions.
The 2010 legislation gave women the legal right to abortion on demand up to the 14th week of pregnancy, or to 22 weeks in cases of severe foetal abnormalities. And it is not yet clear how far the PP will want to go to meet anti-abortion campaigners’ demands for repeal of the “on demand” element of the law. They would like to see a return to pre-1985 decriminalisation – abortion was then first permitted in cases of a malformed foetus, rape, or, like Ireland today in theory, of potential mental or physical threat to the mother.
Gador Joya, spokesman for the “Right to Life” collective, says banning abortion in cases of a malformed foetus “is a step forward for the protection of the right to life ... But it is not enough because we believe that 97 per cent of the abortions carried out for other reasons are carried out under false pretences”.
That scepticism has strong echoes of the Irish debate over the constitutional protection of abortion when there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother, including through potential suicide. Anti-abortion campaigners here have argued that the provision, if liberally interpreted, could open the way for abortion on demand, a view clearly not shared by the electorate. Their counterparts in Spain point to the reality that the majority of the 115,000 abortions carried out in 2009, the year before the reform, were performed at private clinics and were justified on the grounds that the pregnancy posed a “psychological risk” (NB: not suicide risk) to the woman.
But even if the PP does not try to go for an outright ban, its proposals on foetal deformity will still face considerable opposition – a poll last month in El Pais recorded 81 per cent voter oppositon to banning abortion in cases of foetal deformity. Catholic Spain is as nuanced in its view of abortion as Catholic Ireland.