Abortion: Attack on conscientious objection in Spain, with more than 100,000 in 2023

The Minister of Health of Spain, Mónica García, announced the upcoming creation of a registry of conscientious objectors to abortion, a homicidal practice that, according to official figures, ended the lives of 103,097 people before being born in 2023.

García explained, during an informative meeting held this Monday by the Secretary of State for Health, that his department has already prepared a draft protocol for the registration of conscientious objectors that will serve the Autonomous Communities, to comply to article 19 ter of the Abortion Law.

According to the minister detailedthe proposal will allow “there to be no room for excuses or legal loopholes.” In this sense, he stressed that the “right” to abortion “has no turning back” and must “be enshrined in public health.”

Spanish bishops, alert to the possible malicious use of the register of objectors

The secretary general and spokesperson of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), Mons. Francisco César García Magán, expressed caution this Tuesday regarding the announcement made by the minister by assuring that “the records may be ambivalent.”

In this sense, he explained that they can serve to protect the fundamental right to conscientious objection, but also “to keep those doctors and nurses under control and that this has repercussions on their professional career”, a possibility that he described as “very serious.” .

“In the recent history of Europe, when collectives, groups or others have been identified, the consequences have not been very good,” added the prelate, who on the other hand described the official number of abortions perpetrated in 2023 in Spain negatively.

“It is a great misfortune that we have in Spain and in Western Europe. From a demographic point of view, it is clear that Europe is going into that demographic winter, and that generational replacement is needed. On the other hand, we see the need for immigrants and, on the other hand, we do not encourage births,” he warned.

Highest number of abortions since 2013

According to the figures released by the Ministry of Health, in 2023 103,097 were notified, exceeding one thousand hundred for the first time since 2013, when 108,690 were notified.

The abortion rate increased in all age groups, especially among those under 19 years of age, with the communities of Catalonia, Madrid, the Balearic Islands and Asturias being the most affected.

Since the approval of the first abortion law in Spain in 1985, official statistics accumulate more than 2,800,000 abortions, most of them performed in privately owned out-of-hospital centers, that is, for the benefit of the abortion industry.

Furthermore, three out of four prenatal homicides were committed during the first eight weeks of gestation and one out of five when the baby was between two and three and a half months of prenatal life.

In 93.94% of the recorded occasions, the abortion was performed at the request of the mother, the highest figure reached for this concept since the Abortion Law of 2010 was approved, the first to consider abortion as a right and not as a crime decriminalized in cases. Until 2010, the majority of abortions were performed under the decriminalizing legal provision, invoking an alleged risk to the mother’s health.