Irene Montero sees "urgent" to regulate conscientious objection to guarantee that the right to abortion is effective
The Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, has defended this Thursday that a regulation of conscientious objection is necessary within the law of voluntary interruption of pregnancy to guarantee that women can access this right effectively and has advanced that the draft for the reform of this law will be ready in December.
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"I think it is evident that conscientious objection is being the main obstacle" to guarantee that the voluntary interruption of pregnancy is fulfilled and that is why it must be reformed, Montero said in an interview on Cadena Ser, where he also assured that it is something that both the president and the government are also clear about, despite the fact that yesterday the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, ruled out the need to regulate conscientious objection within the law.
Montero has thus answered when asked about the case of the doctor Marta Vigara, a woman who required a therapeutic abortion due to the unfeasibility of the fetus and was forcibly referred to a private clinic because in her hospital, the Madrid Clinic, all the doctors declared themselves to be objectors to awareness, just as the Cadena Ser revealed.
"Conscientious objection must be regulated, as we have already done in the Euthanasia Law, because it is an individual right that is becoming an effective practice to censor the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy in women," said the Minister who has defended "to respect the right of those who do not want to do it", but, he added, "that person has to be in a registry, you can not object to a specific case only." "All the international organizations say it: they do not ask that conscientious objection does not become an obstacle to the law," he added.
In this sense, Montero has confirmed, as he had already advanced by Equality, that his Ministry is working on a reform of the current law to address this issue and include other issues, such as sex education. Thus, the minister has advanced that they will begin a participatory process of consultation with associations and groups to prepare a draft that will be ready in December. "They are three months in which we are going to meet with organizations, we are going to put in the center the right to the voluntary interruption of effective pregnancy for women, in public health and with sexual education," he said.
Huntsman I had already advanced this reform a few months ago, which is also in the agreement of the coalition government, and which provides, among other things, to allow girls aged 16 and 17 to have an abortion without parental consent or "guarantee access to voluntary interruption of pregnancy regardless of where the women live." .
