Blanco noted that more than 95 percent of abortions in Spain are performed because of the “psychological health” of the mother. Such a loop hole needs to be “profoundly curtailed,” he added, so that the exception will only apply to “very grave health problems irresolvable by other means and is equal to the constitutional value of the life of the unborn.”
For his part, the president of the Institute for Family Policy, Eduardo Hertfelder, called the manifesto “truly backwards” as he believes everyone should fight “for the life and the freedom of women and the unborn.”
“I find it to be out-of-date and sectarian that in the 21st century certain institutions exist that want to return to a situation that has been proven to be an absolute failure, both for the unborn child and for the mother,” Hertfelder said.
“Women are being used for ideological purposes that have nothing to do with the defense of life,” he added.
It is “an absolute aberration” to say that abortion is a right “for women or for anybody,” Hertfelder said, and therefore overturning the 2010 abortion law is only a first step towards eliminating other exceptions for abortion such as for reasons of psychological health.
Even if the law were overturned, he noted, that would mean more than 110,000 abortions would still be performed in Spain each year, but eliminating the exception for reasons of psychological health would save up to 1,500 lives annually.
