Spanish Bill On Abortion : Balancing The Mother And Child’s Interests

By Grégor Puppinck, Ph.D | July 24, 2014
Between Thursday, 3rd July and Friday, 4th July, 150 delegates from 16 different European and South American countries along with Spanish representatives met in the Spanish Parliament’s buildings for a conference organized by the “World Action of Parliamentarians and Government representatives for Life and Family”. They discussed the new “Bill on the protection of the unborn child’s rights and the pregnant woman’s rights” issued in December 2013 by the Spanish government and which will soon be discussed in Parliament. The latter reforms the organic law n°2/2010 on “sexual and reproductive health and the voluntary termination of pregnancy” which had been heavily criticized particularly during the 2009 demonstrations, where a million people expressed their discontent. (Here is a complete analysis of the bill by the ECLJ)

After the Spanish representative and General Secretary for the World Action of Parliamentarians José Eugenio Azpiro, and Angel Pintado, Senator and President of this organization introduced the conference, different professionals intervened in the debate. A scientist (Dr. Nicolás Jouve), a doctor (Dr. Ana Martin), a philosopher (Pr. Christophe Tollefsen) and Grégor Puppinck, expressed their views.

Grégor Puppinck, director of the ECLJ (European Center for Law and Justice) in Strasbourg, first highlighted the fact that, though it reflects a minority opinion in Europe, this Bill fits perfectly within the European Court of Human Rights’ case-law and complies with all European and international conventions. Indeed no international convention that would create the right to abortion exists. On the contrary, the Spanish Bill offers to protect the right to life within the framework of international conventions. He then described how abortion should no longer be considered from a unilateral but from a bilateral and even multilateral perspective.

The notion of the ‘right to abortion’ has to be questioned since it implies that abortion is a positive and subjective unilateral right, which only takes into account the interest of the mother. Such a view leads to the denial of the existence and value of the unborn child against which this right applies. This is the perspective from which the Spanish law adopted by the previous government used to stand. This unilateral approach to the right to abortion is ideological since it is based on the negation of a part of reality (the child) and since it makes the will of a third person (the mother) prevail in it. As of any ideological approach, its full implementation is damaging: if such a right to abortion existed, all limits would have to be suppressed and abortion would have to be authorized without any time limit condition.

What stands against the right to abortion is reality: the embryo, the fetus, the unborn child, all really and truly exist. What’s more, they possess all the characteristics of a human being at each stage of his development. To acknowledge this reality, the legislation on abortion has to take into account both the interest of the mother and that of the child in a bilateral juridical perspective. Those interests should then be balanced when they are contradictory and proportionate measures that protect both mother and child should be adopted. This is how a relative right to abortion is conceived: abortion is primarily an exception to the child’s right to life. That’s why in many countries, including France, it was not legalized but decriminalized. If the unborn child had no value, no law would be needed to authorize abortion.

The bilateral approach is however insufficient to comprehend the issue of abortion in any consistent way. From the social point of view, the issue of abortion has to be dealt with from a multilateral perspective in order to place the mother-child relationship in its natural context. This multilateral approach, which involves different players including the family and society, is necessary in order to go beyond the conflicting bilateral relationship between the mother and the child and to remedy the causes of this conflict. Those causes are often independent from the mother-child relationship and often reside in social, economic and affective difficulties.

Society is indeed an essential player in this mother-child relationship. It is responsible for the protection of their health as well as social and economic interests.  Abortion is therefore a ‘public’ rather than a private problem, as highlighted by the Spanish senator Beatriz Elorriaga and different speakers during the conference. Indeed it is the state’s duty to protect the unborn child’s right to life. Abortion is also a real issue of public health in countries, including Portugal, where it is carried out at a high rate. Rather than protecting an almost unlimited right to abortion, the conference advocates for the development of social services to help the mother and the child along with efficient alternatives to the VTP, especially when the child is handicapped. Finally, if demographic considerations play an important part, ethical and familial considerations are also central is this Bill and it is necessary for all persons involved in the act of abortion to be associated with it. The Bill purports to support families, make them more responsible and to give medical staff the option to act in all honesty.

The Bill is therefore above all based on “the observation of the true existence of the conceived child” (Grégor Puppinck) and his right to existence. It provides for an exception to the right to life of the unborn child in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy if the latter results from rape, and in the first 22 weeks if there exists a threat to the life of the woman or the child. This risk has to be asserted by a committee of independent experts. Finally abortion is authorized until the full term of pregnancy if there is an “incompatibility with life” that had not been diagnosed during the first 22 weeks and which is medically certified. This time period of 22 weeks corresponds with the level of viability as established by the World Health Organization. In addition, the advertising of abortion is prohibited and doctors and medical staff are given the option to use conscientious objection whenever they do not wish to carry out this act. A minor’s parents have the right to be informed of the pregnancy of their child. The pregnant woman also has to be informed of the fact that she is entitled to a period for reflection.

Members of the conference explained that in spite of the spread of “systematic abortion” in many countries and of the generalization of the perception of abortion as a right, this Bill is not singular. It mirrors a parallel trend towards the increasing protection of the unborn child, in the United States in particular. Thus the Hungarian Secretary of State, Bence Rétvari explained that in his country, the rights to life and to the protection of family are constitutional rights. In the US, numerous states have reduced the legal time limit for abortion (for example, North Dakota has limited it to 6weeks of pregnancy). An estimated 49% of the population considers that it is an immoral act. The Spanish Bill seeks to pioneer this domain.

The Bill should be examined in the coming months and adopted by December 2014.

At the end of the conference, speakers and representatives adopted the Madrid Declaration, committing to the defense of life and the right of the unborn. The Declaration establishes fecundation as the ‘Big Bang’ of life; it concludes that “nothing is more progressive than the defense of human life.”

A complete analysis of the bill by the ECLJ.

 

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