The Government has accelerated the royal decree that will establish what information must be given to a woman before an abortion, and in it, information about public aid for pregnant women and their labor rights is excluded from the mandatory content: it will only be provided if she requests it. The Council of Ministers authorized the urgent administrative processing of the draft on Tuesday, October 6, and the Ministry of Health will submit it this Wednesday, October 14, to the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System in an extraordinary session to be held by email.
The text, which in the Council of Ministers’ reference appears under the Equality section, the department of Ana Redondo, is titled the royal decree regulating the information prior to consent in the voluntary termination of pregnancy. It also regulates the clinical committee involved in abortions for medical reasons. According to the Government, its objective is to adapt the regulatory development to the 2023 reform of the abortion law and to ensure that all women receive the same information regardless of where they live.
The draft separates two blocks. The mandatory one, which will be given in all cases, covers the nature of the procedure, the available methods, surgical and pharmacological, without preference between them except for clinical reasons, accredited public and private centers, the procedures, and the patient’s rights. The voluntary block includes information on contraception and safe sex, counseling before and after the procedure, public aid for pregnant women and labor rights. This second block will only be provided at the woman’s request, and the Government stresses that receiving it “will never be a requirement to access the service”.
The second part of the decree affects physicians. The clinical committees involved in abortions for medical reasons will have equal composition between men and women, and professionals registered as conscientious objectors will be excluded from them. The draft goes a step further: those who have been registered in that registry in the previous three years will also be barred from participating. The committee must issue its opinion in writing, including the diagnosis, the tests reviewed, and the clinical reasons supporting it.
The text requires that the information be truthful, objective, clear, and understandable, and that special attention be given to minors under sixteen, foreign women, and women with disabilities. The weekly Alfa y Omega maintains that, under these criteria, any reference to associations that help women continue their pregnancies will be excluded from the information given to women; the official summary of the draft does not mention them.
The decree completes the path opened by the 2023 reform, which eliminated the three-day reflection period that the 2010 law imposed between the information and the procedure and made information on aid and rights linked to motherhood voluntary. What was then changed in the law is now transferred to the regulation applied by the regional health departments and healthcare centers.
The form also says something. According to sources from the Ministry of Health cited by Redacción Médica, the extraordinary session of the Interterritorial Council, with this decree as the sole item on the agenda, will be held by email at the indication of the chair of the body, a procedure provided for in its functioning that the Ministry already used in July for the Framework Statute. The regional health departments of the autonomous communities, which manage the service and the registers of objectors, will have to state their position on the text in writing and within a matter of days.
Urgent processing shortens the deadlines of the procedure, including the public hearing period. The Government has not publicly set a date for final approval, which will again fall to the Council of Ministers, less than seven weeks before the general elections on November 29.
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