The Social Democratic Parliamentary Group will defend the next General Council an amendment reservation to Qualified Penal Code bill for decriminalize abortion consented during the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy.
The proposal establishes that it will only be a crime to have an abortion performed outside of the circumstances provided for by law and maintains criminal protection in cases that exceed the time limits and set conditions.
The text also provides that, between fourteen and twenty-two weeks, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy can be practiced when there is risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman, when the pregnancy is the result of a crime against sexual freedom or when detect serious anomalies or malformations of the fetus through a specialized report.
The social democrats consider that the modification is necessary to adapt Andorran legislation to social reality and to European standards in the field of human rights and sexual and reproductive health.
The group argues that women should not continue to be subject to criminal sanctions to make decisions about their own body and maintains that the State’s response must be sanitary, legal and supportive, and not punitive.
General Counsel Susanna Vela has affirmed that the amendment reservation responds to the will to guarantee “the dignity, freedom and legal security of women”. According to Vela, Andorra cannot continue to maintain a regulation that “criminalizes personal decisions” and that forces many women to leave the country to exercise a right recognized in the vast majority of Europe.
