Marta Vigara, a doctor at the San Carlos Clinic in Madrid, met with the refusal of her colleagues when she wanted to interrupt her pregnancy after complications that made the fetus unviable were diagnosed.
She was 17 weeks pregnant and, although they told her that she could terminate her pregnancy, it would not be in that hospital, where
all the doctors in the Gynecology department are conscientious objectors
.
Marta has denounced that the abortion law passed in 2010 allows individual conscientious objection, but not collective.
As a result of her testimony in Cadena Ser we have known many other cases of women who have suffered obstacles when exercising their right to abortion in public hospitals.
But in addition to these difficulties,
many have been harassed by going to private clinics
.
The majority of Congress this week approved the consideration of a reform of the Penal Code to prosecute this harassment, as countries such as France have already done.
Although with the vote against the PP and Vox, it is a first step to classify as a crime punishable by up to one year in jail the harassment at the doors of the clinics to women who are going to have an abortion.
For Sonia Lamas Millán, spokesperson for ACAI, the association of voluntary interruption of pregnancy clinics, we are living “a turning point where we have groups against the right to abortion who exercise all their power to continue harassing and harassing”. But also, he celebrates, it is a moment in which
the administrations "have named what is happening"
and begin to work to eradicate this harassment.
An oppression and harassment that materializes with the physical presence at the doors of the health centers where women go through public health. There the women have to read graffiti with messages such as
"you're going to kill your baby, here children are killed
.
"
In addition, they give them pamphlets that sometimes they even put in their bags, in which they say that "if you abort you can develop cancer, you will commit suicide or you will have problems with your partner," says Lamas.
And to this is added harassment through social networks or calls.
An example is the persecution campaign of the group "Cañas por España", which has been making calls on the last Friday of each month at the doors of health centers with "a total display of posters, aggressive banners, with images of fetal remains and where they advocated to fight for the end of the right to abortion ”.
The harassment groups have been present since the year 85, but it is now when they are more visible and widespread internationally.
Lamas has observed an increase in the growth and organization of these groups, especially since 2010, with the approval in Spain of a law that, in addition to protecting women's right to abortion, also takes charge of the right to health sexual and reproductive.
The spokeswoman underlines the participation of the entire leadership of the Popular Party in the demonstrations for the right to life and that it was this party, before the existence of Vox, who brought the law to the Constitutional Court. Therefore, although the groups claim to be endowed with private funding, "
they have always been at the mercy of conservative policies, of policies linked to the most Taliban of the Catholic Church
."
Lamas believes that this is also related to anti-election groups and that everything is “armed through a patriarchal system, of what it means for women to become mothers or not to be mothers.
The difficult decisions are made because there is still a lot of stigma and a lot of
pressure on us and on our bodies, of what is right or what is not right
”.
After having made a difficult and mature decision, the ACAI spokesperson insists, “the day that the intervention is attended, women do not need to be made to feel guilty, or to be called murderers or invited to listen to the fetal heartbeat to do it. change your mind ”.
The influence of anti-abortion theories in Texas
This anti-abortion offensive has reached its peak in the US state of Texas, where the most fundamentalist positions have succeeded in passing a law that restricts women's access to abortion as much as possible, even in the event of rape.
Texas law allows private citizens to
file civil lawsuits against anyone, from a family member to the taxi driver who takes her to the clinic
, who aids or encourages a pregnant woman to have an abortion beyond the sixth week of pregnancy.
And it includes a mechanism to reward the plaintiff of $ 10,000 if the judgment is in his favor, which promotes a surveillance system for women who want or need to have an abortion.
In practice, this law means that abortion in Texas is practically prohibited in its entirety, since between 85 and 90% of women abort after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Thus,
women are forced to travel to another state to exercise their right to abortion
, which makes the most vulnerable black, Latino and trans women the most affected.
The law comes into force due to the inaction of the Supreme Court, which is also understood as a declaration of intent with a conservative majority court at a crucial moment in this battle over the right to abort in the United States, recognized at the federal level since 1973. A Twenty Republican states have passed up to 600 laws to restrict abortion in recent years.
Sonia Lamas Millán sees in the United States an example of how "the ultra-liberal of the extreme right has managed to gain access to administrations to legislate."
And he believes that to eradicate this harassment, pedagogy is not enough, the punitive route is necessary.
