Posted on 01/09/2008 5:56:44 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
January 9, 2008
Clinics suspend abortions in protest at 'harassment'
Thomas Catan in Madrid
Abortion clinics in Spain started a nationwide strike yesterday to protest against what they called a campaign of “systematic harassment” by local authorities and activists after a crackdown on illegal abortions.
In an unprecedented move, more than 30 clinics suspended all their appointments for this week, forcing an estimated 2,000 women to postpone their abortions. Almost all of the 100,000 annual terminations in Spain are carried out at private clinics.
“The health professionals working in the sector have been subjected to a campaign of persecution and harassment,” a spokesman for the Association of Accredited Clinics for Interruption of Pregnancy (Acai), an industry body, said.
It claimed that many clinics, particularly in Madrid, had been subjected to repeated and arbitrary inspections since the November arrest of the owner of a chain of abortion clinics in Barcelona. Two clinics in Madrid have since been closed over alleged administrative irregularities and some employees have allegedly received death threats. Abortion clinics in the Spanish capital have been subjected to “far more inspections than is strictly necessary”, Santiago Barambio, a director of Acai, said. “It is not normal for a clinic to be inspected nine times in less than a year.”
The Madrid regional government is controlled by the opposition Popular Party, a conservative party with close links to the Roman Catholic Church.
“Neither the Government nor the Madrid regional authorities are guaranteeing womens' right to an abortion,” Dr Barambio said.
“We feel threatened and criminalised, as do the women who have had an abortion,” Dr Barambio said. Acai said that it may call a further stoppage if authorities did not heed its calls.
In November four abortion clinics in Barcelona run by Carlos Morín, a millionaire Peruvian doctor, were raided by police. Dr Morín and two employees were arrested on charges of carrying out illegal abortions. Police wiretaps reportedly found them willing to perform abortions on women into their eighth month of pregnancy, when the foetus is almost fully grown.
Police searching the premises of one clinic, Ginemedex, were horrified to find purpose-built machines, to break up the foetuses, attached to the public drains. Hundreds of British and other European women are thought to have used the clinics. Until recently, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service referred British women beyond the 24-week legal limit in the UK to Dr Morín's clinics.
Under Spanish law, pregnancies can be terminated only until the 12th week in cases of rape or until the 22nd week in cases of severe foetal malformation. However, there is no time limit on abortions if there is a risk to the mother's physical or mental health.
The vast majority of abortions are carried out alleging a risk to the mother's mental health — something that opponents point to as a flagrant abuse of the law.
Birth control
— Spanish law has been modelled historically on the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion. Before 1983 abortion, the sale of contraceptives and giving access to birth control information were criminal acts
— In 1985 courts legalised abortion in cases of rape, severe foetal abnormality and serious risk to a woman's mental or physical health
— Despite this many physicians have been unwilling to operate openly owing to fear of harassment. Abortion has been confined largely to private clinics
— In 1994 the Spanish Government proposed legislation that would permit abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy if the woman was suffering grave personal or economic problems
— The abortion would require a three-day waiting period after counselling on alternatives
— The law was rejected three times by parliament, in 1998 by one vote
— In 1991 the Supreme Court said that it could determine instances in which abortion could be sanctioned on social grounds on a case-by-case basis
Sources: Canadian Federation for Sexual Health; Pew Forum
Good.
To protest a perceived campaign of harassment allegedly intended to reduce the number of abortions being performed, abortionists stopped performing abortions. Got it.
Ditto!
ping
BUMP
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