Belgium: decisive moment regarding potential extension of abortion legislation
The extension of the law regarding abortion passed at the end of December in the House Health Committee provides for a total decriminalization of abortion. It would increase the period within which an abortion could be performed from 12 to 18 weeks after conception. It also reduces the minimum reflexion time from 6 days to 48 hours.
The text is supported by the socialists (PS and SP.A), the ecologists (Écolo-Groen), the liberals (MR and Open VLD and Defi), as well as the communists (PTB). The centre-right (CDH and CD&V), the conservatives (N-VA) and the nationalists (Vlaam Belang) opposed it.
The main argument used by the promoters of the text is that every single year, hundreds of Belgians go specially to the Netherlands in order to get an abortion there (where the legal limit for killing the unborn child goes as far as 22 weeks). The latest figures from the National Commission for the Assessment of the “Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy” show that 472 Belgians had an abortion in the Netherlands in 2017 and 527 in 2016.
According to the once catholic newspaper La Libre Belgique, doctors practicing abortion in out-of-hospital centers are asking to extend the deadline up to 18 weeks “to reflect the reality observed on the ground” and to prevent the women concerned from having to make “this medical trip” to the Netherlands.
Source: lalibre.be
