A reform that expands the right to abortion has passed its first test in Congress. The plenary challenged the efforts of PP and Vox to stop it and the efforts of Ciudadanos to regulate surrogacy. These were the three formations that defended the changes in one of the star projects of the Ministry of Equality, which was rejected by the majority of the House. The same thing happened that morning with the trans bill, which the right tried to kill in front of the support of the rest of the House.
The debate was used by Vox to make an anti-abortion argument, again exposing the accusation of “apologizing for pedophilia” for Irene Montero’s remarks on sex education. Deputy Lourdes Mendez came to ensure that this rule “teaches children to promote abortion and contraception, legitimizing sexual perversion and pedophilia, according to the minister’s statements.” And he continued: “Abortion is the elevation of the sexual revolution to its most destructive extreme, even pedophilia.”
There are several parliamentarians from other formations, including Pilar Valluguera, from the ERC, Bel Pozueta, from the EH Bildu or Rosa Méndez, from the PSOE, who responded to the words of the Vox representative and expressed solidarity with the head of Equality. “It doesn’t matter if it’s legalized or not, women still have abortions, they’ve been doing it all their lives. The only thing the law does is with guarantees,” the Republican deputy defended. “Sex education is something very serious and crooks should not be allowed in this chamber and the president should not act,” added United We Can MP Sofia Castañón.
Bildu’s Pozueta warned the right that “they have lost the battle” because “women own our bodies and this is a social conquest that cannot be reversed. You are the past and we are the present and the future.” For her part, Socialist Mendes denounced the backward proposals as “wanting to take us back to the black and white Spain where women were protected” and lamented that “it is clear that motherhood is an option, not an obligation”. .
The norm includes a set of measures, including regulating conscientious objection and strengthening the right to abortion in public health. It also reverses a reform the PP introduced in 2015 to limit the right of 16- and 17-year-old girls to have an abortion without parental consent, and for the first time addresses menstrual health in legislation.
PP, without going to the bottom
Irene Montero, who is in the chamber, defended the initiative and accused the PP and Vox of “insulting sexual freedom” and “prohibiting or hindering the right to abortion”, which, on the other hand, “does not. disappear, it only endangers the lives of women. The minister also stopped on the subject of sexual education: “Sexual education takes place throughout life, whether we like it or not. The question is whether we want violent pornography to be the basis for them to seek life or with adequate educational support (…) the absence of sexual education in schools will only benefit the aggressors”, he said.
PP, for its part, hides behind the emergency procedure requested by the government and passed by Congress against the norm. “The goal is to steal the debate and parliamentary work,” said MP Marta González, who barely grasped the issue. The parliamentarian called the reform “unnecessary and untargeted”, accusing the Ministry of Equality of “inventing the problem” and “recklessness” in that it “did not wait for the resolution of the appeal to the Constitutional Court” that its formation submitted. Abortion Act 2010.
Like the PP and Vox return amendments, Ciudadanos’ alternative textual amendment with which it proposed a surrogacy regulation was also rejected by the House. MP Sara Gimenez accused “conservatives” who “don’t want to discuss expanding women’s rights” while PSOE and United We Can “criminalize families through surrogacy” and emerged as “the only party” that “says yes to expanding freedoms”.
None of the formations accepted the proposal of the orange formation. “Women’s bodies are much more than mere reproductive machines, they are neither bought nor sold to give birth,” answered socialist Mendez. For his part, Joseba Aguirrexea, of the PNV, said that the Ciudadanos initiative “is about a different bill than abortion,” while he admitted to the government that there are things he doesn’t like. Reform given that there are “a lot of things that we don’t think should be touched” in the standard approved by Zapatero 12 years ago.
Source: El Diario
