Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, has scrapped a planned move to tighten Spain’s abortion laws, abandoning a much-repeated campaign promise. Spain’s Minister for Justice, Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, the proposal’s main proponent, resigned from politics after hearing about Mr Rajoy’s reversal.
“I believe it is my duty to resign with humility, recognising that I have not been able to turn the reversal law into law,” Gallardon said, according to InfoCatolica.
Pro-life leaders in Spain have pledged to punish Mr Rajoy and his Popular Party at the next election.
A spokeswoman for Spain’s largest pro-life platform, Derecho a Vivir (Right to Life), Gador Joya, told The Spain Report that Mr. Rajoy “is a traitor who doesn’t deserve the vote”.
She also told InfoCatolica: “It is a slap in the face of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who only 48 hours ago took to the streets asking him to approve the reform. The president of the Government demonstrates that he is not capable of pushing through a social change. He is not trustworthy because he sees himself incapable of approving laws with permanence.”
The proposed abortion reform would have repealed a law that allows abortion on demand up to the 14th week of pregnancy (and the 22nd in cases where the child is disabled) and would have allowed abortion only in cases of rape or when there was a “serious risk” to the mother’s life or health. Mr Rajoy will go ahead with a much weaker measure which will require minors to obtain parental consent to obtain an abortion.
According to LifeSiteNews, Polonia Castellanos, spokeswoman for the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers, says, “Rajoy has just committed one of the worst electoral frauds by promoting for three years fundamental reform in defense of the rights of the unborn and then thrown away all his promises with a few words.”
