31 Ocak 2014 Cuma

Spanish abortion bill expected to spark substantial protest

Abortion protesters in Spain

Females inquire for ‘health asylum’ at the French embassy in Madrid as element of a protest towards modifications to abortion laws. Photograph: Vallejo/Demotix/Corbis




Tens of 1000′s of men and women are expected to gather in downtown Madrid on Saturday to protest against the Spanish government’s strategy to severely restrict women’s entry to abortion.


More than 300 groups strategy to march to the Spanish parliament to existing a letter demanding that the government abandon its push to enact some of the toughest abortion legislation in Europe. In late December, the governing People’s party (PP) authorized a bill that would see the country’s reasonably liberal abortion laws scaled back. Below the new law, Spanish females would only be capable to terminate pregnancies in the situation of rape or when there was a critical mental or physical well being threat to the mom. The legislation is anticipated to pass in late spring.


Latest polls display between 70% and 80% of Spaniards oppose the alterations. Protests have been taking spot almost every other day across the country, ranging from the women who delivered 220 letters to the French embassy requesting “overall health asylum” to the Andalucian youth who held indications on street corners asking folks to spare modify so they could “travel to London for an abortion” or “spend for a clandestine abortion”.


Saturday’s protest will be a demonstrate of force by a motion that has been steadily growing given that the government announced their ideas, mentioned Puy Zatón, 1 of the protest organisers. “This will be 1 of the most essential protests Spain has noticed in the final 50 years.”


Solidarity protests are also currently being planned in Britain, France, Brussels, Italy and Ecuador.


The abortion debate has spilled in excess of the Spanish border, said Zatón, due to the fact what is occurring in Spain has been a wake-up call about the “fragility” of women’s rights. “European ladies know that what is taking place to us now in Spain could occur to them. All of a sudden these rights can disappear.”


Some of the most vocal opponents of the law have been members of the governing PP. As the get together kicks off their nationwide conference on Friday in Valladolid, the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, will tackle his fractured party, whose quarrels above the proposed law have offered countless fodder for Spanish media. The infighting started when José Antonio Monago, a senior PP leader and the president of the region of Extremadura, asked the government in a statement to abandon its crusade against abortion. He wrote: “No person can deny a female the proper to be a mom, and neither can anybody force a lady to grow to be one particular.”


Politicians across Europe have echoed his worries. In France the minister for women’s affairs, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, openly criticised the proposal to French media. “It really is terrible to see a nation like Spain, which in recent years has become a leader in the battle to finish violence towards ladies … consider a step backwards in the rights of females to choose in excess of their own bodies.”


A heated discussion earlier this month in the European parliament debated what the Spanish selection could imply for the rest of the continent, with the Austrian politician Hannes Swoboda saying he was “frankly shocked” that the Spanish prime minister did not have “other troubles to solve”.


Rajoy has repeatedly maintained that the adjustments simply deal with an election guarantee that must be fulfilled. In a memorandum lately obtained by Spanish media, Spain’s justice ministry presented one more justification for pushing forward with the alterations. Restricting abortions could have a “positive net effect” on the Spanish economic climate, it wrote, by growing the country’s birth rate, currently one of the lowest in the European Union.


In the face of a incredible backlash, Rajoy lately conceded that the reform had turn out to be “a very sensitive situation” and additional he would be open to slightly modifying the bill. “We are willing to go over and listen to you and other people,” he informed a single opposition member right after she called the proposed measures backward.


As she and other protest organisers gear up to welcome thousands to Madrid, Zatón rejected any talk of modifications of the bill. Saturday’s mass mobilisation has just one particular purpose, she explained firmly. “We want this task to disappear.”




Spanish abortion bill expected to spark substantial protest

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