Manifesto of the National Association of the World March Of Women of Catalunya, Euskadi and Galiza against Gallardón’s Abortion Law Proposal

“OUR BODY, OUR TERRITORY”

During the month of December the Board of Ministers of the Spanish State approved the Abortion Law Proposal presented by the minister of Justice Alberto Ruiz Gallardón with the title “Organic Law of protection of the unborn and pregnant female rights”. With this law the “Partido Popular” (Popular Party) has surrounded to the pressure of the Catholic representatives, ultra-conservative groups, fundamentalists and traditionalists that try to stop the female changes oriented to get out of the maternity, domesticity profile. Carers at the service from others.

The new rules, which pretend to derogate the actual law of sexual and reproduction health and the interruption of the pregnancy, not only will eliminate, if is adopted, the actual time slots systems that allows any women to abort in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy without any excuses, but also will be more demanding in the legal abortion conditions. There would be only two conditions: Rape and serious danger of the physical and/ or psychological women health.

The doctors, with more demanding requirements than those in 1985 and with longer procedures, will decide about the potential health danger. In the Law Proposal not all the fetal malformations will be taking into consideration to allow legal abortion but the psychological effect in pregnant women will be considered with the potential negative effect in the medical history of the women that may be used in future situations like, custody of children in a divorce trial, looking for a job, etc

Consequently, we consider that this law will imply:

•The violation of the women rights and a backtrack of about 30 years in the women right fight and right to decide about her maternity without interferences

•A reduction in the women freedom and lost of rights that may originate potential danger to the women life.

•A danger to the women life’s and human rights based on particular moral concepts and fundamentalist and traditionalist religion interpretations

•The illegal interference of certain groups in the national policy and laws that are the responsibility of the State

•An alliance between the Catholic Church and the State that is contrary to the State ́s secular principle, breaking the human rights, generating discriminatory and injustices practices violating the human dignity and individual conscience.

•A violation of the right to privacy.

That will materialize into:

•An increase in the number of clandestine and unsafe abortions. With this law we will joint the club of countries were the abortions are illegal forcing and were the majority of the illegal abortions are produced, forcing, especially to women with low income and/or young females to interrupt the pregnancy in an unsafe manner.

•Return to the times when women needed different psychiatric reports to be authorized to abort.

•A discrimination to the women with low income or low information possibility in such a manner that some of them were able to abort abroad and other were forced to abort in underground conditions putting on risk her own life’s.

•The extension of the sufferings of the women that want to abort by looking for medical reports those allow them to abort.

•The unsure legal situation of the medical people that have to inform about the physiological situation of the women that are willing to abort and the risk of been taking to trial for the practices of aborts.

•The violations of the privacy rights because the women wishes may be questioned and investigated by third people.

In summary, the freedom of the women to decide about her own body and her life will be limited by the same government that is promoting cuts back with high negative implications in our quality and standard of life that nobody could have imagined. A government that concentrate all his efforts and attention to a unborn child when at the same time do not show any concerns for homeless, scholarship, food less, sanitary assistance... etc to already borne Childs. This is the same government that produces dead sentences to the people that try to jump fences and frontiers to guarantee the independence of Europe. The Europe that speaks in terms of fundamentalisms when talking about Islam countries and forget about Catholic one and at the same time are limiting the citizenship rights, that do not have any doubt to limit the human rights and does not have any regret in doing money and social cuts back as real protagonist of the globalized capitalism that is the core of the patriarchate.

For all this reasons the women of the WORLD MARCH OF WOMEN FROM CATALUNYA, EUSKADI and GALIZA association REQUESTS:

• The recognition of the fundamental right of the women to take her own decisions.

• The guarantee of the ownership of the women to take decisions about her own body

• The coverage of the volunteer interruption of pregnancy in the public hospitals assuring the service in the whole country without any territorial discrimination to any women to access to this public service.

• The regulation of the declared themselves conscientious, guarantying that all the official centers are populated by the appropriated professional teams to meet the women abort requirements.

• The right of the women using this service to be respected and protected at any time

• To establish the appropriated sexual and reproduction health policy based on the recognition of the sexual and reproduction rights.

• The introduction of the sexual education with differentiation of males and females in the schools

We remind the government the obligation to warrantee the pluralism, the conscience freedom the right to the sexual and reproduction health and the right to decide. In this sense the religious arguments cannot finish in state policy, even less in laws that are against the women human rights.

WE MAKE A CALL FOR MOBILIZATION

Joint the demonstrations, spread the convocations, speak with your friends, neighborhood, sign manifestos, collaborate with the groups, and start actions against this law. Request to public representatives within all the organizations where the women is represented to take actions against the law, to take measures in defense of our rights and to fight to warrantee to freedom of the women to decide.