The PP continues to tangle in its position on abortion after Alberto Núñez Feijóo decided to support the time limit law approved by the Constitutional Court last week, 13 years after the PP’s appeal. The hardest sectors of the right do not share Feijóo’s move, urging him to reconsider it through public statements and calls to territorial leaders, some of them privately admit. In this regard, PP campaign spokesman Borja Sémper told a press conference yesterday that abortion is “not a right”, although he reiterated his support for the time limit law. In view of the new Imbroglio, official party circles later assured that the PP considers voluntary abortion to be a right “because the constitutional court recognized it as such”.
The NEOS association, the ex-minister of the PP, Jaime Mayor Oreja, and the Assembly of Associations for Life, made up of more than a hundred anti-abortion organizations, have issued a very critical statement to the PP in turn publishes the party that recognizes the time limit right. “This support means a contradiction, not only to the position that this party had taken, but also a distancing and abandonment of the deepest convictions of a substantial part of its electorate,” reads the text, in which she asks Feijóo for a “reflection”. on the position of the PP. The bishops have also reacted with outrage to the judgment of the Constitutional Court, which confirms the term law now also supporting the PP. “It is sad to see how a constitutional court has succeeded in passing an unfair, ideological and anti-science law to approve that, because of their age, deprives certain people of their dignity and respect for life”, the Bishops’ Conference has expressed through the Bishop of the Canary Islands, José Mazuelos. The person in charge of family and life even hints that the OLG- Judgment “economic interests” obscure.
More information
The PP leadership is no stranger to these sensitivities and has decided to focus on defending motherhood from now on with the aim of tempering spirits, leadership sources say. Asked about criticism from these sectors, Sémper noted on Monday that the PP defends “the right to life” and claimed that the PP had not deviated from the social report debated and approved at the last party congress in 2017, according to which abortion is not an entitlement, even if the party recognizes the applicable time limit law. “We never talked about abortion being a right,” the popular campaign spokesman said at a press conference. “Which does not diminish from its unity and importance and does not stop questioning the public powers to regulate this phenomenon to give security to women who choose this process,” he noted.
Feijóo’s problem is that he changed the PP’s position on abortion, a very sensitive issue for the right, without any organic debate or new ideological presentation. Therefore, in reality, the social report discussed and approved at the last party congress in 2017, which reads: “The People’s Party is firmly committed to defending and protecting the right to life. Therefore, we understand that abortion should not be viewed as a right, but as a social failure.”
However, an official spokesman for PP Feijóo, after Sémper’s comments, qualified that abortion “is a right” because “the Constitutional Court has just said so” by freely advocating voluntary abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy. The same sources stressed that the PP does not believe it is “a fundamental right” but it is a right and they reiterated their support for the Deadline Law.
What affects most is what happens closer. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything.
subscribe to
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits