A contentious policy announcement on abortion by a regional wing of Spain’s far-right Vox party has led to it being overruled by its coalition partner after being threatened with legal action by the central government.
Last week, Vox’s vice-president of the Castilla y León region, Juan García-Gallardo, unveiled an initiative which would make it obligatory for clinics to offer women the chance to listen to their unborn baby’s heartbeat or see a scan before proceeding with a termination.
On presenting the measures, he said that they sought to “protect women more, accompany them more during a difficult process like pregnancy”.
The announcement of the plan, which is similar to measures recently introduced by the nationalist government in Hungary, drew an immediate backlash, particularly from the left.
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The minister of trade and industry, Reyes Maroto, of the Socialist Party, warned that “what they are doing is intimidating women so that they don’t exercise their right to abortion”.
Pablo Fernández, leader of the leftist Podemos party in Castilla y León, said the measures “will only create more situations of pain and suffering for women who want to terminate their pregnancy”.
The Spanish health ministry called on the Castilla y León administration to halt its plan. The leftist central government also warned that it would take legal measures if necessary, and even raised the possibility of introducing a form of direct rule in Castilla y León as a last resort.
Last month, Congress approved an abortion reform presented by the central government, removing requirements for girls aged 16-17 to obtain parental consent before having a termination. The legislation also seeks to make abortion more available in public clinics.
Vox has been the most vocal political opponent of such efforts to make abortion more accessible. Last spring, the far-right party joined a local government for the first time, when it became the junior partner in a coalition with the conservative Popular Party (PP) in Castilla y León.
The new abortion-related measures were due to come into effect on Monday, when Mr García-Gallardo again insisted the plan would go ahead. However, no clinics across the region had been given new instructions and the PP’s president of the region, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, appeared to block the policy when he said no such rules would be introduced.
“The government of Castilla y León has not approved any agreement that limits the rights of women or of healthcare professionals,” he said. He blamed the controversy on the central government which, he claimed, was trying to gain political benefit from the issue.
However, the incident has put the relationship between the PP and Vox under intense scrutiny. The PP’s president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, described the apparently abandoned abortion measures as “an improvisation” which had sought “to stir up an internal conflict in a regional government”.
