Courtcase against Spanish government for blocking abortion website during COVID19

Origi­nal post here

Spain, 27 Janu­ary 2021 – Women on Web, with legal support from Women’s Link World­wide, has filed a lawsuit at the Spanish Nati­o­nal Court after the Spanish govern­ment bloc­ked their website in early 2020. The site inclu­des infor­ma­tion on sexual and repro­duc­tive rights and access to safe abor­tion in Spain.

The orga­ni­za­ti­ons argue that the Spanish State is failing to comply with its obli­ga­ti­ons to provide accu­rate infor­ma­tion on sexual and repro­duc­tive rights and viola­tes the arti­cle 10 of the ECHR, the Free­dom of expres­sion by acti­vely censo­ring an orga­ni­za­tion that offers complete, accu­rate infor­ma­tion on access to legal and safe abor­tion in Spain.

“The Spanish State has an obli­ga­tion to provide accu­rate, complete, and timely infor­ma­tion on abor­tion care. Because of its failure to do so, many women have to turn to inter­na­ti­o­nal websi­tes to learn how to get access to safe abor­tion servi­ces in Spain” explains Women’s Link World­wide attor­ney Este­fanny Molina.

Obsta­cles to access abor­tion care parti­cu­larly effect the most vulne­ra­ble people, such as poor women, single mothers, victims of violence, women who live far from clinics, and migrant women with irre­gu­lar immi­gra­tion status. During the COVID-19 pande­mic, barri­ers to access to safe abor­tion have incre­a­sed not just in Spain but also some other coun­tries in Europe. Since the start of the pande­mic, 34% of women who were able to reach out to Women on Web depite the censors­hip, indi­ca­ted that they could not access local abor­tion care because of COVID-19.

“Instead of censo­ring Women on Web, Spain could have imple­men­ted tele­me­di­cal abor­tion servi­ces like the UK, Ireland and France did, to make sure women can still access a safe abor­tion care during COVID-19.” notes Veró­nica Fernán­dez, Women on Web’s spokes­per­son in Spain.

Lack of infor­ma­tion on abor­tion in Spain

In Spain, there is a seri­ous lack of high-quality offi­cial infor­ma­tion that explains in simple language the steps to obtain an abor­tion, time limits, or requi­re­ments, and infor­ma­tion is not avai­la­ble in langua­ges other than Spanish. Many medi­cal and admi­nis­tra­tive staff in public health faci­li­ties are not aware of the proto­cols to follow in order to obtain an abor­tion and give incor­rect instruc­ti­ons or even deny access to abor­tion, parti­cu­larly for migrant women with irre­gu­lar immi­gra­tion status or tempo­rary resi­dents. Many public hospi­tals all over Spain do not perform abor­ti­ons because of cons­ci­en­ti­ous objec­tion. Accor­ding to figu­res from the Ministry of Health, between 2010 and 2018, 91% of abor­ti­ons were perfor­med at licen­sed private clinics. 

Finally, during the COVID-19 pande­mic, the Spanish govern­ment has not laun­ched an infor­ma­ti­o­nal campaign to let women know how to obtain access to abor­tion during the crisis or taken any measu­res to reduce the need to travel in order to reduce expo­sure to infec­tion (except in Cata­lo­nia and Gali­cia).

What can you do?

A step in the right direc­tion was taken on Janu­ray 20 th, when the Spanish Minis­tery of Health opened a public consul­ta­tion for chan­ging the regu­la­ti­ons so that women who are less than 9 weeks can access medi­cal abor­tion servi­ces in primary health centers. We would like to encou­rage every­body to send your support before Febru­ary 4, 2021 through the follo­wing email address: norma­tive [ punto ] dgspcimscbs [ punto ] es (norma­tive[dot]dgspci[at]mscbs[dot]es).

You can use this stan­dard text for the email: « I support the avai­la­bi­lity of medi­ca­tion abor­ti­ons in primary care centers to help lift barri­ers to abor­tion care in Spain, in line with the policy advice of the WHO and deve­lop­ments in other Euro­pean coun­tries.»

For more infor­ma­tion:

• Major barri­ers to abor­tion in Spain: https://bit.ly/3iqPsrq
• Stories of women who have contac­ted Women on Web

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