Spain’s Constitutional Court on Thursday upheld a 13 year-old law that allows women to abort on demand within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy after the divisive issue resurfaced following a regional far-right party’s effort to limit abortion access.
The ruling comes after the court was revamped in December with the conservative faction losing clout, which led it to dismiss the appeal brought by the centre-right People’s Party (PP) in 2010 against the law passed by the Socialist government that year.
“The Abortion Law is constitutional,” Equality Minister Irene Montero said on Twitter.
The proposal caused a big turmoil, with the central government threatening to step in if the region restricted women’s rights.
The regional PP leader said no abortion protocol would be changed and that they were only improving resources available to both healthcare professionals and women.
Women’s rights are back under the international spotlight after the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to terminate pregnancies in 2022.
Abortion was first decriminalised in Spain in 1985 in the cases of malformed foetuses, rape or potential mental or physical damage to the mother.
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