In Germany, a law dating from 1933 allows doctors to perform abortions but not to provide public information on the procedures involved. The government wants to change it.
In Germany, women have the possibility of having an abortion, but a law dating back to the 1930s places a significant restriction on doctors: they cannot publicly provide information on the procedures or the conditions involved. Yet this information is essential for making an informed choice. The new government led by Olaf Scholz has promised to turn the page.
Technically, in Germany abortion is a criminal offence against life under articles 218 and 219 of the penal code. It is, however, an offence that is not prosecuted if the pregnancy is terminated during the first trimester, following consultation with a specialist, or if it is the result of sexual violence, or if it poses a risk to the physical or psychological health of the woman. Article 219a, introduced in 1933 during the Nazi regime, imposes a further prohibition on doctors: that of advertising their decision to perform abortions.
A restriction that, according to the government, no longer serves any purpose. As early as 2019, the government led by Angela Merkel had partially reworded the text: since then, doctors have been able to make it known (on their website, for example) that the termination of pregnancy is among the services they offer, without, however, being able to explain the conditions and procedures involved. On Monday 17 January, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann announced a new draft law enshrining doctors' right to provide all necessary information without fear of legal repercussions. "The situation for the women involved is already difficult enough; we should not make it worse," he said at a press conference in Berlin.
Buschmann highlighted how a paradoxical situation had come about, in which anyone was free to talk about abortion even through social media, without any checks whatsoever, except for the doctors who have the appropriate specific expertise on the subject. Indirectly stigmatising the practice by creating a climate of limited transparency therefore risked proving counterproductive for women's health itself.
According to the Center for reproductive rights, every year 25.1 million unsafe abortions are still performed worldwide. 90 million women — that is, 5 per cent of those of reproductive age — live in the 23 countries where the termination of pregnancy is not permitted under any circumstances, not even for medical reasons. Countries such as Egypt, Senegal, Madagascar, Laos, the Philippines and, in Europe, Malta and Andorra are on this list. San Marino left it in September 2021, when abortion was decriminalised by referendum.