The PP considered withdrawing its appeal before the Constitutional Court against the abortion law

Federico Trillo, after presenting in June the appeal against the Abortion Law in the Constitutional Court in June 2010.ULY MARTÍN

The PP considered withdrawing the appeal against the abortion law that it presented in June 2010 and that it has just lost in the Constitutional Court.

Almost 13 years later, he doesn't recognize himself in it.

It was presented by the then coordinator of Justice and Public Liberties of the party, Federico Trillo, with another 69 signatures of deputies including Mariano Rajoy, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Jorge Fernández Díaz, Ignacio Cosidó or Ignacio Gil Lázaro.

Neither society nor the PP are the same anymore.

A good part of the signatories of that resource are today out of active politics and in the case of Gil Lázaro he is no longer even part of the party: in 2018 he said he did not feel "identified" with the PP and went to Vox, a formation with the that the popular now try to mark distances.

PP leaders assure EL PAÍS that they studied the option of withdrawing the unconstitutionality appeal filed almost 13 years ago by representatives of the same acronym, knowing that they were more likely to lose than to win, as has actually happened, when the Constitutional endorsed the law of abortion approved during the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The norm conceives the voluntary interruption of pregnancy as a right of women within a period (14 weeks), contrary to the system of assumptions, which authorizes it only in some cases.

But the popular ones verified that it was not formally easy to withdraw their appeal because they would need the approval of the signatories, some of whom, especially Trillo, continue to defend their position belligerently.

Sources from different leadership teams of the PP admit that it is a matter that has always been "uncomfortable" in their ranks and that the most conservative wing of the formation that had to be satisfied 13 years ago, many of whose members were close to Opus Dei no longer has the same power of pressure or internal influence.

When the PP arrived at La Moncloa, at the end of 2011, Mariano Rajoy promised to repeal the law approved during the Zapatero government and which had appealed to the Constitutional Court, and he charged the Minister of Justice, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, with an alternative project, based on assumptions and not on deadlines.

But in the end he did not dare to implement it, he withdrew the project and Gallardón, then one of the leaders with the greatest projection in the party, announced his resignation in 2014 and withdrew from politics.

From that moment until today, the popular ones do not oppose the deadline system and their only drawback to the abortion law is the absence of parental consent for minors to abort.

“We”, declared the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, this week, “have a substantial discrepancy regarding the socialist abortion law insofar as we think that minors, who cannot drive, should not have that ability to decide to terminate the pregnancy without the knowledge of their parents.”

It is not the first time that reality, time or social advances advance the PP.

In 1981, with the Alianza Popular brand, they opposed the divorce law.

Manuel Fraga, founder of the party, said then: “We are going to defend religious marriage from any attack.

We will follow the attitude of the Church, guardian of Christian morality”.

And in 2005, to the law that allowed same-sex marriage.

Ana Botella, who was mayor of Madrid between 2011 and 2015, is known mainly for two phrases: that of the “

of coffee with milk in the Plaza Mayor” with which he unsuccessfully promoted Madrid's candidacy for the Olympic Games;

and his argument against gay marriages: "If an apple and a pear are added, they can never give two apples because they are different components."

But once in La Moncloa, with the BOE in hand, the PP did not repeal either of the two laws.

In both cases, he waited for the Constitutional Court to bring down his appeals.

"In current Spain and in the European Union", Feijóo has now declared, "my personal opinion is that a well-constructed law of terms is a correct law in general, constitutional terms and, therefore, an approach that deserves my respect" .

However, the leader of the PP himself, when he was president of the Xunta de Galicia, was committed to returning to the 1985 law, of assumptions.

The comings and goings of the popular regarding abortion have been constant.

Pablo Casado also bet in his primary campaign, when he was competing against Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and Dolores de Cospedal for the leadership of the party, to return to the law of assumptions, which then meant going back 33 years ago.

Once elected, after prevailing over the former vice president of the Government in the 2018 congress, he assured that he would repeal the current law —despite the fact that his predecessor had not done so—, but he did not include that proposal in his electoral program.

Her position and initial statements — "I believe, from my personal experience, as the father of a five-month-old, that it is good for women who find themselves in uncertainty to know what they carry inside" — provoked the indignation of party veterans such as Celia Villalobos, who left politics shortly after:

“Women know what it means to have to abort.

We don't need a man to explain it to us."

During Casado's stage as president of the PP, however, the party leadership forced Adolfo Suárez Illana, the leader's personal bet, to qualify some controversial statements: “Abortion takes 100,000 lives a year.

Neanderthals used it too, but they waited for it to be born and cut off its head,” he said.

"When you're wrong, it's best to apologize," he declared hours later.

Suárez Illana has also recently abandoned politics.

to qualify some controversial statements: “Abortion takes 100,000 lives a year.

Neanderthals used it too, but they waited for it to be born and cut off its head,” he said.

"When you're wrong, it's best to apologize," she declared hours later.

Suárez Illana has also recently abandoned politics.

to qualify some controversial statements: “Abortion takes 100,000 lives a year.

Neanderthals used it too, but they waited for it to be born and cut off its head,” he said.

"When you're wrong, it's best to apologize," she declared hours later.

Suárez Illana has also recently abandoned politics.

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