The abortion counter-reformation

Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón on Tuesday confirmed that he plans to reform the 2010 Sexual Health and Reproduction Law and return to the earlier model, although his words did not entirely rule out the possibility that he will end up sponsoring an even more restrictive system than that found in the 1985 legislation. In line with his party's ideology - but also demonstrating extreme openness to its most reactionary faction - Ruiz-Gallardón does not just plan to repeal the article allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to terminate their pregnancies without their parents' consent. He also announced, without providing further details, an end to the model that now enables women to freely have an abortion until week 14 without having to provide justification.

The Popular Party (PP), which appealed part of the 2010 law before the Constitutional Court, always opposed letting minors terminate their pregnancies without parental consent. Legally the 2010 provision made sense, since according to the Patient Autonomy Law, 16- and 17-year-olds can freely undergo surgical operations, get married and have children. The PP's plan means a return to the former situation, in which a young woman may decide to have a child, but not the contrary.

But besides this issue, for which social support is in fact more fragile, Ruiz-Gallardón's counter-reformation also threatens to deprive women of any age of the capacity to make their own decisions regarding such an intimate and non-transferable issue as their own maternity. A return to the 1985 law is a return to women as minors, who depend on other people's decisions and are forced to lie almost by default. Ninety percent of abortions in Spain are carried out on the claim that the mother's mental health is at risk, the third legal provision under the previous law.

But the minister's intentions are more expeditious than all that. An in-depth analysis of the assumptions "of non-existence of penal reproach" is a flowery expression that could actually lead to criminal prosecution of women who have an abortion. His wink to pro-life movements using their own arguments about "the right to life" heralds a historical step backwards. Yet returning to 1985 might be the least bad of the scenarios, since simply amputating part of the 2010 law would create a freakish piece of legislation, considering that the old law did not place time limits on abortions when the mother's health was at risk, whereas the new law logically limits late-term abortions.

Recent studies show that more permissive laws do not lead to more abortions. This has been proven in Spain as well. Those same analyses do show, however, that greater restrictions lead to more clandestine abortions and a higher health risk for women, something that falls outside Ruiz-Gallardón's ministerial powers. The fact that this battle has been started by a justice minister rather than a health minister is a symbol of this government's stand on the issue, and a bad omen of what lies ahead for women, once again.