Abortion has been prohibited and practised in every society for centuries, but its prohibition has merely led to it being performed in secret. This has made the circumstances of discrimination between men and women worse, and among women too; between those who, with better financial, social and cultu- ral circumstances, have been able to have a safe abortion — even travelling to another country with different laws and healthcare practices — and those who have not.
In our opinion, abortion is a problem of public health and legal policy, not just a matter of conscience; the existence of proper regulation to delimit the legal cases and provide guarantees for its practice is an unavoidable matter of legislative policy for countries. Having an abortion or not, in each particular case, is a moral question, of individual awareness, that everyone has to resolve. All abortion laws must be accompanied by good sexual and reproductive health policy to facilitate access to information and contraceptive methods, and to encourage responsibility in one’s sex life, so that abortion is not the first option; such policies must be part of public policy in a plural, social state un- der the rule of law. Nevertheless, in Spain the reality shows us that there is no place for sex education in school curriculums, but it is taught according to the goodwill and the possibilities of parents and teachers in each school.
It is a fact — although some sectors do not even want to accept it — that lessons on the subject of sex and reproduction would notably reduce the num- ber of cases in which women are forced to make tragic and painful decisions. Naturally, not all cases would be resolved, but it is a fact that the number of
abortions would be reduced, as would the confrontation between attitudes that lead to clashes of absolutes between “warring factions” — they can only be described as such, as it seems to be a fight between different sides who do not even agree on the concept of dignity or human rights. Good quality sex education, not attaching blame, but based on responsibility, helps people to take control of their own behaviour, take the relevant steps to reduce risks, and avoid unwanted effects. In other words, sex education and access to contracep- tive methods bring about a considerable reduction in the number of abor- tions: all those that are performed because of a lack of information and access. In this way the voluntary termination of pregnancy would be a solution in cases where the measures have not been sufficient and, specifically, it would resolve the instances in which the woman’s life and health are at stake, or where malformations of the foetus have been detected, or serious unforeseen circumstances have arisen that make it necessary to resort to it.
The decision to terminate a pregnancy entails having to choose between various “evils” and options that may be placed in order differently, but which always represent a fateful decision for the woman, who is the one who has to decide, and also for those who intervene in the act. Therefore, with respect to abortion, a fundamental question is — as Resolution 1607/2008 of the Council of Europe2 points out — to clearly show that abortion is the unwanted
outcome of a previous problem: unwanted pregnancy. Not wanted because it was the result of a forced sexual relationship, because it endangers her health, because the foetus presents malformations, because it changes her life, or, quite simply, because it was not planned. In the majority of cases, abortion is the con- sequence of very poor or non-existent sexual and reproductive education and of inadequate access to the birth control methods that women have to use and, as has been said, it has particular repercussions on those who are in a very under- privileged social and financial situation.
In any case, it would be appropriate to delimit the controversy over the regulation of abortion. Very often the issue ought not to be focused yet again on discussing the morality of abortion, as laws on the voluntary termination of pregnancy already exist in more than two-thirds of the countries in the
2 Resolution 1607/2008, of 16 April, of the Assembly of the Council of Europe, which urges member
countries to legalize abortion, establishing reasonable time limits for it, and to guarantee the effec- tive exercise of women’s right to an abortion free of medical or legal risks, respecting women’s right to choose and offering them conditions for a free and informed choice. It also urges its members to eliminate real and regulatory restrictions on gaining access to risk-free voluntary termination of pregnancy, creating the appropriate healthcare conditions and providing suitable funding. Available at: http://assembly.coe.int/main. asp?Link=/documents/adoptedtext/ta08/fres1607.htm.
world,3 and moreover abortion has never been equated with murder in sen-
tences, grief or public sentiment.4 In our opinion, reasons in favour of or against
the type of regulation or modification proposed need to be put forward. In comparative law, abortion can be regulated by a law that includes indica- tions of de facto instances where behaviour is decriminalized; by a law that sets legal time limits for abortion; and through a mixed system in which the system of time limits is observed during the first weeks of gestation, after which indica- tions and prohibition come into play. Most countries adhere to the system of indications, and the performance of abortions is decriminalized (done with the consent of the pregnant woman and meeting certain requirements) in different instances, of which the most commonly accepted are: danger to the mother’s life or health, when pregnancy is a consequence of — previously reported — rape, malformations of the foetus, and so-called social or socioeconomic indica- tion. Different evaluations of the conflict between the real rights of the woman and the potential rights of the embryo or foetus — which the Spanish Consti- tutional Court does not consider a person but a “legally protected asset”5 —
underpin the adoption of one or another technique.
3. The value of the life of the foetus