The Judiciary approves divided a report critical of key aspects of Irene Montero’s abortion reform

The plenary of the acting General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has approved divided its report on the draft abortion law. It is a critical opinion with some of the key aspects of the text designed by the Ministry of Equality directed by Irene Montero: she objects to the elimination of two of the requirements for abortion that are currently in force and warns that the suppression of parental permission for young women 16 and 17 years old to terminate the pregnancy “makes it difficult” to exercise parental authority.

The report has been approved by ten votes: seven conservative members (Ángeles Carmona, Vicente Guilarte, Carmen Llombart, José María Macías, Juan Martínez Moya, Gerardo Martínez Tristán and Wenceslao Olea) and three progressives (Rafael Mozo, Roser Bach and Enrique Lucas). sources from the governing body of the judges inform elDiario.es.

The five members who have voted against have announced that they will formulate particular votes. They are the conservatives Nuria Díaz and Juan Manuel Fernández, who will write a letter with a position that, in general terms, is against abortion as a women’s right. And of the progressives Mar Cabrejas, Concepción Sáez and Pilar Sepúlveda, who disagree with the treatment that the report gives to the consent of minors of 16 and 17 years of age. The conservative José Antonio Ballestero and the progressives Álvaro Cuesta and Clara Martínez de Careaga have voted blank.

The paper that has supported the plenary session was prepared by the members Roser Bach (progressive) and Ángeles Carmona (conservative). He proposed maintaining the obligation to wait three days to reaffirm the decision to abort and also requested that the obligation to receive information on maternity benefits be maintained before terminating a pregnancy. With the current law, women who want an abortion receive a sealed envelope with information on the rights, benefits and public aid to support maternity and whose content is directed in some communities even to anti-abortion associations. And they also have to face a mandatory period of reflection from the moment they receive this information. The Government wants to eliminate both requirements. The reform was approved on December 15 in Congress and is on its way to the Senate, where it will be definitively approved.

Regarding the suppression of the three-day reflection period, the report says that this period is “necessary for an adequate formation of the will and for the adoption of a conscious and thoughtful decision.” Regarding the envelope, the opinion affirms that the right to receive information is a requirement “associated with consent”. And it maintains that this information, to be adequate, complete and sufficient, should not be oriented exclusively to the practice of abortion, but also to the protection of maternity (without introducing ethical or religious considerations) although “it must not be articulated in such a way that restrict the effectiveness of the law.