Spain’s Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected a challenge filed more than a decade ago by the conservative Popular Party against a law allowing abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The legal challenge “did not win the support” of the court, the verdict said. The main opposition legal argumentation of the PP had focused on the constitutionality of the right to life of the fetus.
Four new justices were appointed to the 12-member court last year, shifting its political balance to the left.
“The Abortion Law is constitutional,” tweeted Spain’s Equality Minister Irene Montero, who represents the far-left United We Can party within the coalition government. “Never again should they spend 13 years questioning a single right” for women.
DEBATE IN SPAIN ON REGIONAL RESTRICTIONS TO THE RIGHT TO ABORTION
People take part in a protest against abortion in Madrid, Spain, on November 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)
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These delays are not uncommon in Spanish courts.
Abortion has once again become a politically sensitive issue in Spain in an election year. A far-right member of the Castilla y León regional government proposed in January that doctors should give women the opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat and view four-dimensional ultrasound before any abortion procedure. The idea was later dropped. The Autonomous Communities of Spain have jurisdiction over public health policy at the regional level.
The 2010 abortion law was a major change for a traditionally Catholic country under the leadership of former Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The law allowed abortion on demand up to 14 weeks and up to 22 weeks if there was a serious threat to the health of the mother or a fetal malformation.
The People’s Party has long sided with the Roman Catholic Church on moral and social issues. However, after the judicial decision, the current leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said that the existing window for access to abortion in Spain was “correct” and that he would respect the judicial decision.
