Spanish court agrees to study whether streamlined abortion law is constitutional

Spain court will study challenge to abortion law

MADRID — Spain’s highest court agreed Wednesday to study whether a new abortion law allowing the procedure without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy is constitutional.

With the law due to take effect July 5, the Constitutional Court gave the government and Parliament three days to present arguments as to whether it should be suspended while the tribunal deliberates, as sought by conservatives who are challenging the legislation.

The new abortion law, approved in February, was the last piece of a liberal agenda undertaken by a Socialist government that took power in 2004 and brought traditionally Roman Catholic Spain more in line with its secular neighbors of northern Europe.

The law also allows 16- and 17-year-olds to have abortions without their parents’ permission, although parents would have to be informed.

The conservative Popular Party filed suit in June challenging the law as unconstitutional.

Under Spain’s current abortion law, which dates back to 1985, Spanish women could in theory be sent to jail for getting an abortion outside certain strict limits — up to week 12 in case of rape and up to 22 weeks if the fetus is malformed.

But in practice, abortion is widely available because women can assert mental distress as sole grounds for having an abortion, regardless of how late the pregnancy is. Most of the more than 100,000 abortions each year in Spain were early-term ones that fell under this category.

The new law wipes away the threat of imprisonment and declares abortion to be a woman’s right.

In challenging the 14-week clause as unconstitutional, the Popular Party cited a 1985 ruling from the Constitutional Court that said a woman’s rights could not automatically take precedence over those of an unborn child, but rather only in cases of rape, fetal malformation or when the mother’s health is in jeopardy.

To establish a period for unrestricted abortion “violates the balance between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn,” Popular Party lawmaker Sandra Moneo said.

The party also argued that letting under-18s have abortions without parental consent violates parents’ rights.