The Spanish national leftist government has threatened to take the region of Castille and León to the constitutional court over proposed pro-life policies aimed at reducing abortions in the region.
The Spanish Ministry of Health has called on the region not to implement the new pro-life measures, which would oblige doctors to inform pregnant women they have the option to the heartbeat of their unborn child, among other policies, warning the region it would not hesitate to take legal action.
The Ministry warned it “will use all the mechanisms that the legal system puts at its disposal to defend the freedom of women and their right to voluntarily interrupt pregnancy in the terms established in current regulations,” Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports.
The Spanish Council of Ministers has gone even further, demanding the region explain whether or not the new measures conflict with existing abortion rights, handing down a requirement of incompetence, which gives the region a month to reply to charges that it has no authority to enact the policies.
Spanish government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez clarified the reasoning behind the possible legal challenge to the pro-life policies, stating that medical professionals could not be told to give additional tests to pregnant women who have already decided on having their unborn child aborted.
Ms Rodriguez also stated that the government would not back down on the issue saying the government was “not going to allow even one millimetre to go backwards in terms of women’s rights.”
Félix Bolaños, Minister for the Presidency, which is responsible for relations between the government and the Spanish parliament, stated, “From the government, we are working on all possible options. We are not going to allow a single setback in the rights and freedoms of women.”
The new pro-life policies were announced last week by Castille and León vice-president Juan García-Gallardo, a member of the populist party VOX, which is in coalition agreement in the region with the conservative Spanish People’s Party.
The announcement has led to conflict between the two parties, with national People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo stating this week that “no doctor, much less a politician, can interfere,” in a woman’s decision on whether or not to have an abortion.
VOX MP Iván Espinosa de los Monteros slammed the leader of the People’s Party, stating the party had turned to the left, while the party’s spokesman Ignacio Garriga went even further, threatening the coalition agreement in the region.
Mr Espinosa de los Monteros, however, stated that the issue was not whether or not the coalition deal would fragment, but whether or not the People’s Party would bend to the will of the Spanish left.
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