In its quest to ease access to abortion, Israel will undergo a series of reforms in the coming days, a report by the Hebrew language Ynet news site said.
The changes include giving women the option to carry out drug-induced terminations at their local healthcare clinics instead of hospitals, a revision of invasive paperwork, and nixing a requirement to see a social worker in person ahead of the procedure.
However, most notably, the controversial committee that decides whether a woman can have an abortion will not be abolished as such a move would require a legislative change that would likely draw ire from Israeli’s conservative lawmakers, including the Ra’am Arab Islamist party that sits in the ruling coalition, the report said.
According to Health Ministry data, there were 17,548 requests made in 2021 to pregnancy termination committees, with 74 percent of the abortions carried out by the ninth week. The committees grant the overwhelming majority of requests and abortions are subsidized by the state.
Questions that are considered invasive, including number of children a woman has and reasons she did not use contraceptives, will be dropped from the forms, according to the upcoming reforms.
“The choice to have an abortion must be in the hands of the woman. This is my simple stance and the principle that guides me,” Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said.
He said the existing process was “ridiculously outdated” and “chauvinistic,” and called it a “bad joke.”
“No one has touched this issue for more than 40 years. These regulations are conservative and outdated. It’s about time to advance to the 21st century. We’re revamping regulations, getting rid of the sexist and degrading questioning women go through, and we’ll allow a simpler, more accessible and more respectful pregnancy termination process.”
The reforms come on the heels of a leak of a draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that would strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
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