The political storm caused in Castilla y León by the medical protocol for the care of pregnant women announced by the PP and Vox government, which caused internal outrage at the scale of its measures and the apparent intent of the far-right. Its use to obstruct the right to abortion quickly became a state problem for the PP. The party led by Alberto Núñez Feijoo once again showed its deep internal contradictions in this matter: the more or less clear rejection of the national leadership of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s attempt to expand its electorate to the right, partly Vox’s theses.
The outrage stems from a press conference on Thursday where the council’s vice president, Juan Garcia-Gallardo, assured that pregnant women, including those expressing their decision to have an abortion, would be offered a fetal heartbeat or 4D listening. Ultrasound, in addition to preferential psychosocial care, a formula with which the regional government tried to subdue women who do not want to continue their pregnancy. number two Under the leadership of Alfonso Fernández Maniueco of the Executive.
Gallardo said it would be optional for women to take it, but doctors would be required to offer all measures. An obstacle to the exercise of the right and also a bomb in the middle of the start of the May 28 pre-election campaign. This Saturday, the PP plans to present its regional candidates in Zaragoza, and the issue is likely to take up a good portion of the media coverage, as Feijoo’s party has once again shown its historic problems against abortion.
The PP’s first reaction to Gallardo’s words was the silence of the representative of the government of Castile and Leon, who was sitting next to the vice president. Furthermore, a press release issued by the junta itself confirmed, although it was later denied, that the regional executive had agreed to “develop and implement. Fetal heart rate protocol As part of planned care in the first trimester.
The national leadership reacted tepidly on Friday morning with the mouthpiece of his new campaign spokesman, who is actually Feijoo’s management committee spokesman, Borja Semper. A person recruited by the PP president from a private company, placed in the body closest to the paid leader – apart from the campaign committee, and who was presented on Monday as a guarantor of Feijo’s “moderation”. wants to offer after he arrived on the main floor of the national headquarters in Calle de Génova in Madrid, but which remained on the way.
The new leader said in an interview on Antena 3 that the PP is not going to “swallow anything”. Semper assured that his party will reject the measures it does not agree with and wants to “impose”. According to him, the policy of promoting birth is fully compatible with the clear policy of respecting women’s freedom. “And the government, or in this case the PP, when it disagrees, will say and correct the policies that others want to impose and we think are wrong,” he explained.
But Semper did not say what it is that the PP is not going to “swallow” or what they mean by “promoting fertility” or how far “respect for women’s freedom” goes. In fact, Semper’s supposed correction of the government of Castile and León to Gallardo was not like that. Although the Ministry of Health – PP – tried to partially qualify the vice president and even denied it in his own press release, the Ministry of Family indicated that the measures provided for in the new protocol will be taken. “All pregnant women”, without distinguishing between those who want to end it and those who don’t, and that they choose “at their own liberty” whether they want to use them or not. That is, doctors should offer it.
And late this Friday, Health confirmed to elDiario.es that it will send an instruction to health professionals on Monday informing them of the measures proposed by Vox, but will leave the decision whether to use them to their medical discretion.
And Ayuso (and Almeida) appeared
The evolution of the crisis led to a stronger reaction from the leadership of the PP. Sources from Feijoo’s environment told elDiario.es that there is a “strong and vocal public position” on the matter. “We are not sharing and it will not be implemented,” said the same sources.
And then Isabelle Dias Ayuso appeared. Amidst the comings and goings of Maniueco’s government on abortion in Castilla y León, and while Feijo’s PP was trying to put out the fire just five days after selling the new “moderation”, Ayuso broke the party line and announced. Your own “pro-life” measure.
In a PP act in Madrid, the president of the region announced that his government would launch an information phone for pregnant women “in favor of life, not against anyone”. During the act, Ayuso defended that women have “the right to be informed and not be alone or pressured by anyone.”
His leader’s event was hailed by Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida as “pro-life”. Almeida went even further than Ayuso and also upheld the Castilla y León government’s protocol of forcing women to listen to the fetus’s heartbeat. The mayor of Madrid, whose leadership has been called into question because he has not openly confirmed his mayoral candidacy, assured that “no one can criticize that women are offered all the information to have the evidence and to make the decision that they think is right.” You have to take it.”
Ayuso’s position contradicts what he himself announced a few months ago, when he publicly declared himself in favor of abortion reform that would allow 16- to 17-year-old women to terminate pregnancies without parental consent. Also in that case Leader Madrid’s PP has distanced itself from the party’s position, but in favor of a government reform led by the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, and opposes the positions of Feijoo – and the law of the government of Mariano Rajoy. which protected parental consent.
historical contradiction
“If a 16- or 17-year-old girl wants to have an abortion, should she be able to do it even if her parents are against it?” Ayuso was asked in an interview on Onda Cero. “I think he should be fired, of course. Once a woman makes it clear that she doesn’t want to go through with it, and obviously, I believe you can’t force anyone to live the opposite of what they want to do,” he replied.
Four months later, the roles were reversed. Feijoo’s leadership is struggling to break out of the ultra-frame marked by Vox, while Ayuso is positioning himself (again) against his own party.
In fact, the ups and downs in PP when it comes to abortion is a historical trend. The party, which now unites Hispanics, defends the 1985 law of presumptions, which proposed the legalization of abortion, as a “consensus” rule that the “radical left” replaced with a new law based on deadlines and not evaluated reasons. . But the Popular Alliance of Manuel Fraga, the predecessor of José María Aznár at the head of the party, turned completely against him in 1985.
In fact, abortion is now a very difficult right in public hospitals in PP-run communities. In other places where the right is regulated, abortions are not available in public or private centers, forcing thousands of women to travel outside their province to terminate their pregnancies legally.
The PP also positioned itself against the first major reform of the abortion law, approved in 2010 by Congress under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s presidency and with Bibiana Aido as Minister of Equality. It was the norm that changed the paradigm: from assumptions to installments and decriminalization. Anathema to the right, which suddenly defended the 1985 law as its own.
Then the opposition party appealed to the Constitutional Court. After 13 years, the Court of Guarantee has not been able to agree on a position on the constitutionality of the text, which has been applied at the same time, with the help of more or less different administrations.
During this time, the balance of the majority in the constitution has changed to the point where it now puts the progressives 7 magistrates against 4, despite the PP boycott attempt and the mandatory renewal of the judiciary. The court is waiting for a new rapporteur on abortion to present his criteria to the new president, Candido Condé-Pompido, and it will go to a plenary session for a vote.
Coincidentally, the person in charge is Enrique Arnaldo, who is supported by Feijoo’s predecessor at the head of the PP, Pablo Casado. When he came to the surety court, they were the majority. Already not.
But the PP was not satisfied with only appealing to the Constitutional Court. In 2012, after coming to government with an absolute majority, Mariano Rajoy tasked his Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón with drafting a new law. The former mayor of Madrid, who finally fulfilled his desire to be in the Council of Ministers, tried to return to the law of presumptions and add a crime to the Penal Code for illegal abortions.
The law pushed Gallardon, who resigned in September 2014 when he discovered his leader didn’t want to know anything about his law. Social mobilization, led by feminists, prevented a counter-reform that was limited to certain details, such as the restoration of parental consent for 16- and 17-year-old women.
Now the government has fully restored this right. Abortion is not a concern of Spanish society. And in Feijóo’s PP, they prefer to tiptoe during conflicts and not position themselves on something so that their hands are free afterwards. and to try to fish from one side to the other in a publicly announced attempt to win over a portion of the socialist electorate in view of appointments in connection with the 2023 elections. What his so-called allies will not do. If the Galician generals win in December, let them.
Source: El Diario
