The plenary session of the Congress of Deputies has definitively approved this Thursday the reform of the abortion law and the first
trans law
of democracy.
The reform of the legislation on abortion comes just when the term model has just received the endorsement of the Constitutional Court —13 years after the PP appealed the norm—, and now it expands its scope.
It has obtained the green light by 185 votes in favor —those of PSOE, Unidas Podemos, ERC, PNV, CUP, EH Bildu and Más País—, 154 against —PP, Vox, CS and a PDeCAT deputy— and three abstentions (PDeCAT ).
trans
law
It was approved by 191 in favor —PSOE, UP, ERC, Ciudadanos, the Plural Group, PNV, CUP and the Canary Islands Coalition—, 60 against —VOX, Bildu, UPN and Pablo Cambronero (CS)—, and 61 abstentions —PP, PRC, Forum and Carmen Calvo—.
The norm, which incorporates the principle of free gender self-determination, has led to the greatest fracture in the feminist movement, also among the coalition partners and within the PSOE itself.
The most visible opposition among the Socialists is that of the former Vice President of the Government Carmen Calvo, who this Thursday abstained from voting, as she did last December when the law first reached Congress and was approved with votes against. of PP, Vox and Cs.
In today's session only the Senate's amendments were put to the vote.
The two standards have followed different paths until their approval.
Both turbulent, despite the fact that, according to surveys, the majority of the population supports the need to grant rights to the LGTBIQ collective and supports the model of terms for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.
The Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, has argued in the Congressional rostrum that today's vote is not the end point.
“I am aware that the road does not end here, that we have not managed to incorporate non-binary realities, immigrant trans people and others that we will discover moving forward.
We have taken as big a giant step as we can ”, she has said of
trans law
.
“There will be resistance to the application of this law, as there is and has been with all feminist laws.
It is time to work to guarantee that, when it comes into force, in all public hospitals there are enough personnel for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, respecting conscientious objection ”, she stated about the abortion reform.
More information
The deputies approve the 'trans law' and the abortion reform
The ambiguity of the right on abortion.
As the approval of the reform approached, the right and the extreme right have fueled the controversy surrounding the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.
Finally, and just before the Constitutional decision that endorsed the 2010 law, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, announced that his party supported the term model (the same one that appealed 13 years ago);
but criticism from the hardest sector of the right has later led him to hesitate on the question of whether or not abortion is a right;
The hesitation has ended with this statement by Feijóo: it is a right, but not fundamental.
Some statements that during the plenary session have earned him the accusation of "treason" by Vox and also the reminder of several deputies about the closed debate that abortion means for society.
"Spanish society is clear about it: abortion is a right and it cannot be touched, leave women alone," concluded his speech, applauded by Montero, Íñigo Errejón, leader of Más País.
The former socialist deputy in the Madrid Assembly Carla Antonelli (center), together with representatives of groups of trans and LGTBI people, this Thursday in the Congress of Deputies.Luis Sevillano
The tension, between Vox and the PP and also with the left-wing bloc, already occurred just a month ago, when the vice president of the Government of Castilla y León and regional leader of Vox, Juan García-Gallardo, announced an anti-abortion protocol that was finally nothing, but with which the extreme right tried to reopen the social debate.
This caused the PSOE to introduce an amendment in the legal reform in the Senate to emphasize something that the law already included: the veto of any measure of coercion against women that hinders their right to voluntarily terminate the pregnancy.
The abortion reform establishes that the administrations must organize public health resources to guarantee the practice of abortions (currently more than 80% are practiced in the private network), introduces sexual education in all stages of compulsory education , incorporates menstrual health as a right and work permits for painful periods, and returns the ability to decide autonomously about their pregnancy to 16 and 17-year-old girls and those with a disability.
It also eliminates the obligation to provide pregnant women with information on maternity benefits and removes the three days that until now the woman had to wait to "reflect" before making her decision final.
More information
Keys to the reform of the abortion law
Division in the Government by the
trans law
.
Regarding the
trans law
, the issue has been more complex.
No norm has caused more tension and a greater rupture in Parliament, between the coalition partners, within the PSOE itself and in the feminist movement, where one part has split for being contrary to this legislation.
A rejection that has been added over time to the greatest crisis suffered by the Executive: that derived from the reductions in sentences for sexual offenders motivated by the entry into force of the law on sexual freedom or the only yes is
yes
.
The right and the extreme right have insisted on it during the plenary session.
“A harmful law”, “a new
only yes is yes
”, has augured the popular María Jesús Moro, reaching out to the PSOE so that they would not vote in favor of the norm and negotiate another.
“We have a sincere and honest conviction of the harmful and perverse nature of this law.
God willing, we will repeal it very soon ”, launched María Ruiz, from Vox.
From the left, the defense of the norm has been closed.
The socialist Raquel Pedraja responded to the PP in her speech: "They are the party of no, of no to advances in the rights of women, of LGTBI people, of workers... For those who have resources It is always yes", he lamented, before ruling that "with this law, Spain is a better country
".
Pedraja has vindicated the work of the PSOE, "which is the party of social rights, of great social progress."
ERC's Maria Carvalho has emotionally stated that for decades trans people have been “hidden”.
And María del Mar García Puig, from Unidas Podemos, recalled the murder, last week, of a trans woman in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona.
“Historical breakthrough”
That emotion has also been present in the stands.
From there some historical activists of the LGTBI movement have followed the session.
"Today, after two indescribable years of struggle, where we worked our butt off along the way, we are making history again with the approval of a just, necessary and reasonable law, because we were always on the right side of history," he said. Carla Antonelli, who was the first trans deputy in Spain and who left the PSOE last October, as a consequence of that division that generated the processing of the law in the party to which she had been linked for decades.
Uge Sangil, president of the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals (FELGTBI), was also present at the plenary session: "Today we celebrate a historic breakthrough," she stated.
The Minister for Equality began her speech by looking at them and thanking them: “They told us it was impossible and today it is law.
Fill the streets of our country with pride.
Never a country without you, you and you”.
The
trans law
has precisely as its axis the element that has generated the fracture of the feminist movement: free gender self-determination, that is, that a person can change their name and sex on the DNI only with their will.
A change that is contemplated from the age of 12, by age groups: from 16 without requirements, between 14 and 16 with the consent of the adolescent's legal representatives, and between 12 and 14 with judicial authorization.
The norm also includes, and among other issues, the prohibition of conversion therapies, even when they have the consent of the person concerned or their legal representatives;
access to assisted reproductive techniques within the portfolio of common services of the National Health System for lesbian, bisexual and single women, which was excluded seven years ago;
and the filiation of babies for lesbian couples who are not married (until now, either they had to marry, or one of the women was the biological mother and the other had to adopt, just as happens in gay male couples ).
Despite all the schisms, internal and external, the Government has fulfilled, with the vote on Thursday, its objective of approving both laws before the end of the legislature.
Irene Montero hugs the activist Boti García, in the corridors of the Lower House, this Thursday. Luis Sevillano
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