The Acting General Council of Justice (CGPJ) will consider a report on the reform of the abortion law at a plenary session on December 22, which the government says is intended to put an end to “obstacles for women. In the last decade, women have faced the availability of voluntary termination of pregnancy. The bill, drafted by members Roger Bach (Progressive) and Angel Carmona (Conservative), opposes repealing the two abortion requirements currently in place and warns that it would prevent parental consent for 16- and 17-year-old girls. Termination of pregnancy “complicates” the exercise of parental authority. The text created by the Ministry of Equality is already being processed in the Congress.
The paper, which members will scrutinize, proposes maintaining the three-day waiting period for confirmation of an abortion decision and also calls for maintaining the obligation to receive information about maternity care before termination of pregnancy. Now, women who want to have an abortion receive a sealed envelope containing information about rights, benefits and government assistance to support childbirth, and the contents of which even refer to anti-abortion associations in some communities. They also have a mandatory reflection period from the moment they receive this information. The government wants both requirements to be scrapped.
Regarding the suppression of the three-day reflection period, the draft report states that this period is “necessary for the adequate formation of the will and the making of a conscious and considered decision.” He confirms that it is in the legislation of several neighboring countries and that it cannot be prevented on the pretext of an “infantilizing” effect on pregnant women. And with regard to the envelope, the rapporteurs confirm that the right to receive information is a requirement “associated with consent”. And they argue that this information, to be adequate, complete and sufficient, should not be focused exclusively on the practice of abortion, but on the protection of childbirth (without introducing ethical or religious considerations), although “it should not be expressed in such. A way that limits the effectiveness of the law.
The government’s text also restores the right for 16- and 17-year-old girls to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent seven years after Mariano Rajoy’s PP abolished it. The draft report states that the measure “does not conflict with international observations and recommendations or the doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights” and recognizes that current legislation gives women over the age of sixteen “a degree of maturity and autonomy sufficient for legal intervention.” life without the interference of their legal representatives.
However, it considers that the “autonomous and unconscious consent” of legal representatives “clearly impedes” the exercise of parental authority, which parents must exercise in accordance with the Civil Code. In this regard, they conclude that the operation of the current system, in which parental consent is required, is “equally justified”. And they emphasize that a possible conflict between the will of the minor and the parents can be resolved through the procedure provided by the law itself, which will allow the reconciliation of the interests of both.
The draft report also challenges another key aspect of the government’s text: the sacrifice of painful rules that the coalition partners finally managed to close after intense debate and would make Spain a pioneer country in the EU. Well, the speakers warn of the “lack of justification” in the absence regulation, and confirm that the new regulations will allow the employer to understand what is the reason for the absence from work, which “can lead to completely opposite results. It is likely to lead to marginalizing or stigmatizing reactions to women in general and to those who experience secondary disability as a result of menstruation. ”
On the other hand, the project envisages that abortions are performed in public centers and only in special private ones, in order to “ensure provision with proper guarantees, to avoid clandestine practices or to make the situation known throughout the national territory in order to plan and develop public policies.” . The proposed opinion states that these goals can be achieved in private centers as well, which will allow the preservation of “women’s freedom of choice.”
The equality project is also moving forward with the conscientious objection of doctors, which is one of the elements that hospitals and entire communities use without offering data to prove why society does not accept abortion.
In order to understand the situation and to try to force the centers to have enough professionals, the norm obliges each community to create a register of opponents, who must be both private and public health.
The paper does not object to the regulation of the right to conscientious objection in the draft law, although it is indicated that the form of access to the register of opponents “should be specified in the regulatory instrument of the infra-organizational rank” so that it does not limit the right to data protection provided by the Constitution.
Although its mandate expired four years ago, the CGPJ continues to prepare reports on bills and other provisions among its functions. Although the findings of this report are not binding on the government, their approval is a mandatory procedure.
Source: El Diario
