WUNRN
MACEDONIA - GOVERNMENT PASSES
CONTROVERSIAL ABORTION LAW
Amid protests by activists and in the absence of opposition parties, the Macedonian parliament adopted new abortion legislation that critics say curbs women's rights.
Sinisa Jakov Marusic
10 June 2013 - With almost no debate, 62 Macedonia legislators from the ruling conservative VMRO DPMNE party-led majority in the 123-seat parliament voted to support the new law.
Photo by: Sinisa Jakov Marusic
The controversial government-backed legislation was pushed through with a
curtailed procedure that left no time for a wider public debate.
Only Ivon Velickovksi from the opposition Liberal party voted against. He was
the only opposition legislator present at the session.
The
main opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, were absent from the vote in protest.
“The law is being adopted by ignoring the constitutional right of choice and
other rights and freedoms. It is being pushed through in a shortened procedure
without listening to the public that had negative remarks about the law,” SDSM
legislator Oliver Spasovski told local media.
But the ruling majority, including the majority of women in it, defended the
law that was submitted two weeks ago by the health ministry in what many saw as
a surprise move.
“There are no restrictions on women’s rights,” insisted VMRO DPMNE legislator
Suzana Anova.
"The law is directed towards the protection and care of the women and
their reproductive and mental health,” she said.
As the MPs were voting, several hundred rights activists protested in front of
the parliament building, urging the immediate withdrawal of the bill.
They carried banners reading “My Body, My Decision” and “I Am Not a Child
Killer”.
Previously, 91 local and international rights groups, including the Macedonian
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Association for Health Education,
HERA, had signed a joint letter to Macedonian lawmakers protesting about the
proposed legislation.
Last week, health minister Nikola Todorov promised that he would make some
concessions on the draft.
One of the concessions that he offered was to remove a provision that would
put himself in charge of the formation of a commission that would decide on
women’s requests for abortion.
But he insisted the draft was “liberal”.
“There will always be opposing opinions over which right is greater, the right
of the woman to decide on her own or the right to life of the child in her
womb,” Todorov said over the weekend.
The current law, dating from 1976, leaves key decisions on terminations to
women and doctors.
But under the proposed changes, women will now have to file requests for
abortions and will have to confirm that they attended counselling, informed the
“spouse” of their intention to abort and met a gynaecologist.
The law would further prohibit women from having a second abortion within a
year of the first one.
“These restrictive measures bring us back to the times when other people
decided about women’s rights," said Liljana Poplovska, head of the small
DOM party, the only governing coalition party that opposed the bill.
Ermira Mehmeti Devaja, a legislator from the junior ruling Democratic Union for
Integration, DUI, was the only other woman from the ruling majority who
publicly said that she would not support it.
Some see the move as a step towards a ban on terminations. In 2009, the
government launched a media campaign against abortion, which was backed by the
Macedonian Orthodox Church.