The Constitutional Court plans to approve the 2010 Abortion Law in its plenary session this Tuesday, which enshrines women’s right to choose their pregnancy for the first 14 weeks without having to meet any conditions. The significance of the ruling has been known since last February, when the court’s new progressive majority rejected the first draft, then drafted by Conservative Sector Judge Enrique Arnaldo. The new text — drafted by the court’s vice president, the progressive Inmaculada Montalbán — will impact the gender perspective, according to institution sources.
The bill or draft resolution prepared by Arnaldo was defeated three months ago by seven votes from the progressive sector to four votes from the conservative bloc. This draft considered the time limit system to be constitutional but proposed to repeal Article 17 of the law as it did not guarantee the pregnant woman full and exhaustive information before making her decision. Arnaldo suggested that the woman who announced her intention to have an abortion should be informed not only in writing but also orally about the procedure she would undergo and also about possible alternatives, such as the existence of a state maternity allowance.
The progressive majority of the Constitutional Party refused to repeal this requirement and defended that the approval of the abortion law should be complete without questioning any of its articles. Therefore, the presentation declined and Judge Montalbán took over the drafting of a new judgment, the content of which will be known today.
In the meantime, a partial reform of the abortion law passed by parliament last February has come into force. This reform eliminates the need for parental permission for women aged 16 and 17 who decide to have an abortion (which the 2010 law provided for) and also eliminates the obligation to inform the pregnant woman in writing about the alternatives to abortion, being given three days for contemplation.
The ruling on the abortion law is the longest-delayed in the court’s history. The law was challenged by the PP in 2010, but the Constitutional Court put deliberations on the matter on hold for more than a decade when it found there was no consensus on it. The presentation of Magistrate Enrique Arnaldo was written more than a year ago and was supposed to be discussed after Easter 2022, but the Guarantor Authority decided to postpone the discussion again so as not to create new tensions in the court, which was almost a month absent his term with the to end the composition at that time.
At the time, the Constitutional Court had a conservative majority that approved the rulings lifting the state of alert as a legal tool to deal with the pandemic. This debate was already a great strain on the court, which did not want to repeat the experience on the verge of its theoretical renewal, although the change finally came only in January 2023. Pedro González-Trevijano and Juan Antonio Xiol respectively President and Vice-President of the Constitutional Court up to that date, they agreed to the postponement until the extension. His replacement in January ushered in a new phase of the Constitutional Court, already with a progressive majority, in which Cándido Conde-Pumpido was elected President and Inmaculada Montalbán Vice-President. One of his first decisions was to rush the deliberations on the abortion law to plenary, which now, four months later and after the aforementioned rejection of the first draft resolution, will be given a final judgment by the court.
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