Worldwide, activists are demonstrating at this Saturday for the removal of abortion from the criminal law books. Also in Germany, protested against the paragraph 218 and 219.
Since almost 150 years of abortion in the German criminal code, you can find today between euthanasia and negligent homicide. Already in the 1970s, the “My belly belongs to me has demonstrated”movement for the abolition of paragraph 218.
Nearly half a century later, Activist go again this Saturday on the road with a similar claim: “abortion out of the penal code!” Sarah Thibol, an activist at the women*collective in Cologne, is one of them. Your personal goal is, first, “that many women do not know that abortions are not legal in Germany. There are so many so surprised when they hear for the first Time.”
Sarah Thibol for impunity of abortion
According to the law, is punishable in Germany, the termination of a pregnancy with a prison sentence of up to three years or a monetary penalty. The demolition has to take place for medical reasons, has led to a rape pregnancy or the woman’s advice and drives off before the twelfth week of pregnancy, may be carried out a demolition without a penalty. Through these exceptions, the procedure is not legal, but only without punishment is possible.
The topic of “morally charged”
2018 were carried out according to the Federal statistics office, just over 100,000 abortions in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 96 percent of cases, the procedure after a consultation and before the twelfth week of pregnancy was carried out. Almost four percent of the abortions were performed for medical reasons, and only 20 crashes, according to criminological indication, in other words, because the pregnancy came about through rape.
Although almost all women can have an abortion in Germany by these exceptions, call Sarah Thibol and other activist crashes inside the complete decriminalization of the pregnancy. “There’s someone on it has the Hand. We do not have the right to stop,” she says. “We shall only be granted as long as someone says: ‘That’s fine, if you to do it now.’ But actually it is not allowed.”
Kate Cahoon, an activist in the Alliance for sexual self-determination, sees another Problem. The anchoring of the two paragraphs in the penal code would lead to the taboo nature of the topic, she says. “That is so charged and morally, and that women who have unwanted pregnancies and abortions, which, in addition, stigmatized.”
Currently, in particular, politicians of the Left, the Greens and the FDP are not crashes for the legalization of Pregnancy in Germany. A majority of it but still. The candidate for the SPD-chair Christina Kampmann and Michael Roth want to use it in the future.
In the ranks of the CDU/CSU and the AfD of this leads to rejection. “The applicable regulation provides advice on the best protection for the unborn child and for the mother in her difficult situation,” says Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, legal policy spokeswoman for the Union group.
Protests and counter-protests
As the mood in the discussion of abortion in Germany heated up is, was last updated on July 21. September in Berlin. There, abortion opponents demonstrated with a so-called “March for life” against abortion. The organizer of the “Bundesverband right to life” language of more than 8,000 participants.
The Association Chairman Alexandra Linder said that every person has Dignity “from conception to death, the same personal”. You and your Mitdemonstranten met to vociferous counter-protest of about 5,000 people that were with disruptive actions, such as time, road blockages have attention.
Blocking: an opponent of abortion and against demonstrators on 21. September in Berlin
The public discussion of the legal regulation of abortions in Germany after the condemnation of the Doctor Kristina Hänel in November 2017 re-flared up. She was sentenced to a fine of 6000 Euro, because it crashes on your Homepage pregnancy as part of their performance had a listed offer.
As a result of the protests, however, the Bundestag voted in the spring for a Reform of section 219a. It was forbidden to Doctors, to inform about the offer of abortion. Now this Information is available, however, without further information in relation to specific intervention methods. This Information is provided by the Federal chamber of physicians prepared and published on the Internet list.
Watch the Video 04:35
Armed to the ban on advertising for abortion: a conversation with Doctor Kristina Hänel
Activist Cahoon is a result of the Reform to be dissatisfied. “This has been a very lazy compromise,” she says. “He has not led to any significant improvements. The list is almost completely empty. It is a sad testimony of what is on this List. We have not heard from the medical Profession that they are willing not to be on this list, as long as the statutory scheme is clear.”
Papaya Workshops for medical students
Due to the lack of clarity in the law, many Doctors do not dare have an abortion, so Cahoon. In addition, many Doctors are not trained to be able to have a procedure to offer. Abortion as a medical method is not addressed in the study of medicine often. Only since last winter semester, the Charité in Berlin, a lecture on pregnancy termination.
Otherwise, must inform students, often on your own. “If we are not trained for that, then you need a lot of self initiative to learn. It will then give de facto simply no Doctors, and Doctors who can perform,” says Caroline Gabrysch, an activist for “Medical Students for Choice”.
On your own: “Medical Students for Choice”
Single women report that they have to drive hundreds of miles to find a doctor that takes such an attack as by. According to data from the Federal Statistical office, there was the beginning of 2019, around 1150 in Germany that offer abortions. In 2003, there were almost twice as many as today, at about 2050.
“It is in large cities such as Berlin and Hamburg, not such a big Problem, but if my only contact has somewhere in the Land of no idea, or not dealt, then I am as a woman alone and have to search the Internet and incredibly wide to me,” says Gabrysch.
The consequences of this defect are only be felt, spent, among others, the obstetrician-gynecologist-education in the GDR. “In East Germany, it was mandatory for every gynecologist to learn abortions in the training and then also to offer,” says Gabrysch. Also, some of the gynecologists in the Federal Republic of Germany have offered to crashes. These skilled workers go, but now in retirement.
Exercise with Papaya: a medical student learn abortion
Organizations like Medical Students for Choice are trying, the lack of information to balance, in the you offer outside of the curriculum seminars on the topic. Including the Papaya workshop, the show, on the basis of tropical fruit, such as a termination can be carried out fall.
The deletion of the two paragraphs 218 and 219 of the criminal code is the declared goal of the activists who will go this Saturday on the road. For Sarah Thibol from Cologne, this would be only the first step. “The removal is the Minimum of what needs to happen,” she says. “We must fight to continue to ensure that women can have an abortion in fact, without them, the Job is deleted, or that you be excluded from a municipality,” she says.