A recent reform was meant to guarantee free abortion in all of Spain. Is it working?

By Natalie Donback 
27/05/2023

Many Spanish women have had to go to private clinics to abort and pay upwards of hundreds of euros to do so. Spain recently passed a reform to improve the unequal access to abortion but enforcement has been poor in some autonomous communities and regional elections that could see a far-right party advance have stoked fears the new law could be all but shelved in some areas.

The reform which aims to improve access to abortion by making it mandatory for each of the country’s 17 autonomous communities to offer the procedure in public hospitals, including those with conservative and right-wing local governments, came into force in March.

Continued:  https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/05/27/a-recent-reform-is-meant-to-guarantee-free-abortion-in-all-of-spain-has-it


Vox deputy offering ultrasounds to women outside Madrid abortion clinics

Vox deputy offering ultrasounds to women outside Madrid abortion clinics
Far-right politician Gadór Joya has not confirmed how long she has been running the “Life Ambulance Project,” or how many patients she has persuaded to go forward with their pregnancies

Isabel Valdés
Madrid 18 NOV 2019

A member of the Spanish far-right group Vox has been performing ultrasounds on pregnant women outside abortion clinics in Madrid. Gádor Joya, a pediatrician and a deputy in the Madrid regional assembly, says she has been providing the free service – dubbed the “Life Ambulance Project” – from a van because she believes women “don’t know what they are carrying inside them” when they get pregnant.

“I and other doctors have been giving these women ultrasounds… Precisely because I have been doing this, I know what has been hidden from these women. Most of them, when they receive the information and hear the heartbeat, decide to go forward with their pregnancies,” said Joya at a regional health committee meeting on November 5.

Continued: https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/11/18/inenglish/1574067256_699300.html