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ARCHIVED - Spanish government threatens legal action over anti-abortion protocols
Castilla y León proposed several measures including offering pregnant women 4D scans that have been quashed by the government in Spain
Following some harsh words from the Spanish president and threats of legal action, the conservative leader of the Castilla y León region has acted against his coalition partners and decided to drop their controversial anti-abortion measures.
The regional government last week announced a series of “pro-life” measures that included offering women considering a pregnancy termination a 4D scan of the foetus, obliging doctors to give women a chance to listen to the heartbeat and a psychological consultation.
While patients would still be allowed to decline these services, the central government, and the Ministry of Equality in particular, argued that the protocols would oppress women’s rights by pressuring them not to have an abortion.
The Spanish Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics agreed, asking doctors to respect women’s rights to an abortion, adding that the use of 4D scanning would be highly unusual and even potentially dangerous during the first trimester of pregnancy.
At the end of last year, Spain passed a new law allowing girls under the age of 17 to seek a pregnancy termination without parental consent. Far-right political party Vox sought to introduce the new measures in Castilla y León in response to this, insisting that offering women alternatives “would be worth it if even just one baby who was due to be aborted is born”.
President Sanchez immediately hit back, warning the regional government to drop “any actions that would infringe laws on sexual and reproductive health and the voluntary interruption of a pregnancy” unless they wanted to wind up in court.
While Castilla y León’s president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, agreed to scrap the proposals this week, he accused Sanchez of overreacting and “tackling a nonexistent issue with unusual harshness.”
Instead, he advised President Sanchez to focus on more important matters, such as his “botched” reform of the ‘Only yes is yes’ legislation, which has allowed several sexual predators walk free.
Image: Archive
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