Abortion in Spain
Abortion in Spain is legal upon request up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, and at later stages in cases of risk to the life or health of the woman or serious fetal defects.
Abortion remains a controversial political issue in Spain, but regular moves to restrict it have lacked majority support.
In the electoral program for the general election held on 20 November 2011, the People's Party included modifying the law on abortion.
Article 15 describes that abortion is allowed up to 22 weeks of pregnancy in cases of "serious risks to life or health of the mother or fetus".
These are the requirements of the voluntary termination of pregnancy: This information may be dispensed with when the minor reasonably claims that this will cause a serious conflict, manifested in certain danger of family violence, threats, coercion, abuse, or a situation of homelessness.
The law was supported by PSOE, the ruling party of Spain, led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and the Minister for Equality, Bibiana Aido.
The parties that supported the government were the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), United Left (IU), Initiative for Catalonia Greens (ICV), Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG), Nafarroa Bai, and two members of Convergence and Union (CiU).
Outside parliament civil society organizations also expressed their rejection: representatives of the Spanish Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church, Pro Life Associations and the Institute for Family Policies (IPF).
In 2009, a survey on Spanish youth conducted by the Sociological Research Center or Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas indicated that 55% of young people felt that it was only the woman who should decide the issue, one in four believed that society should place certain limits, while 15% objected to abortion in all cases.
In January 2012, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, Minister of Justice for the new conservative People's Party (PP) government led by Mariano Rajoy, announced at his first appearance in parliament his intention to reform the Abortion Law of 2010.
This act had been passed by the Socialist government of Rodriguez Zapatero, establishing gestation-age-limited model favoured by most European countries, but was contested by the Catholic Church in Spain and the PP, especially on the issue of whether minors between 16 and 18 may abort without parental consent.
[37][38][39][40][41] In May 2022, the socialist government presided by Pedro Sánchez approved a bill that aims to bring voluntary termination of pregnancy to public centers, allows abortion without the need for parental consent from the age of 16, and recognizes, for the first time, the right to menstrual health.
According to Trinidad Jiménez, then Minister for Health and Social Policy of Spain, the decline was due to over-the-counter sales in pharmacies for the so-called morning-after pill which was liberalized in late September 2009.
[59] Under this previous law, it was only allowed under the following conditions: to preserve the mental health of the mother (in which case two specialists have to approve); if the pregnancy was a byproduct of rape or incest reported to the police (the abortion must be performed in the first twelve weeks); if the fetus would have deformities or an intellectual disability upon birth (two specialists had to agree on the findings); or if the mother's physical health was in immediate danger (in which case an abortion could be performed without the consent of the woman's family physician or the woman herself).
[59] Under the 1985 law, the threshold of "endangering the mother's mental health" was reported to be very low, making it a legitimate reason to provide elective abortion services.
