Definitive green light for the crime to prosecute the harassment of anti-abortionists in front of the clinics

The Senate has definitively approved this Wednesday the reform that brings to the Penal Code a specific crime to prosecute those who harass and harass women at the doors of abortion clinics. The plenary has given the green light to the PSOE bill which aims to put an end to the impunity with which the ultra-Catholic groups have been acting in these centers for years despite the opposition of the PP and Vox, who unsuccessfully tried to overthrow the initiative and have voted against it.

Anti-abortion groups that harass women open headquarters in front of the Dator clinic

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The right raises in its opposition the same argument of the groups that lead the anti-abortion offensive in Spain and that they called a rally in front of the Senate against what they call "the criminalization of pro-lifers." The far-right party has already announced in Congress that it would appeal the rule to the Constitutional Court, while the PP has focused its intervention on criticizing how "inappropriate" and "ineffective" it considers the reform from a legal point of view. In Congress, their spokesmen had appealed to the "freedom" and the "exercise of rights" of those who are located around the clinics to try to convince women who have already freely made the decision not to abort.

They do it by displaying a battery of actions that range from praying in a group a few meters from the centers, the example that the right-wing usually sets, to displaying anti-abortion banners, rebuking women, giving them toy fetuses or approaching them with brochures loaded with false and biased information. According a survey conducted between 2017 and 2018 by the Association of Clinics for the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (ACAI) to 300 women from different parts of the country who have suffered this accusation, 89% felt harassed.

The reform contemplates prison sentences of three months to one year or work for the benefit of the community for those who "restrict or harass the freedom of a woman who intends to exercise her right to the voluntary interruption of pregnancy." And also to the health and administrative staff of the clinics, a change from the original text that the groups agreed to later. In addition, they have agreed that it is not necessary for the aggrieved person to file a complaint for the crime to be prosecuted.

The chamber has debated some of the amendments that were still alive, but they have been rejected. Among them the establishment of the so-called "security zones", at the proposal of the PNV, to prevent the calling of concentrations around the clinics, within a perimeter of 150 meters. It is an instrument that is already used in countries such as France, the United Kingdom or Germany. ERC and Bildu, for their part, have requested that the term "pregnant people" be incorporated into the text together with that of women, with the aim of "including trans people with gestational capacity" and a new clause to guarantee anonymity and privacy. of the complainants during the process.

The strategy that the ultra-Catholics usually use to defend their activity is based on lowering the intensity with which they act in the clinics and framing their campaigns in a task of "helping" women with the aim of "saving lives", which is like They call the act of getting some of the women they approach to turn around and not enter the center.

In some cities and clinics in particular, such as Dator, in Madrid, the activity is especially intense. On many Saturdays, at the gates of the center, an ambulance set up by Right to Live, an anti-abortion platform founded by HazteOir, does ultrasounds to try to ensure that women who have already made their decision “can know that their child is alive, that your heart beats” and do not abort.

The clinic, the women who attend and its workers are now also battling on a new front: the opening of a branch just in the place opposite to welcome and support anti-election groups. On the facade, which does not go unnoticed, the face of a baby appears along with the phrases "Are you going to miss my smile?" or “abortion is not the only option”.