Regional abortion rights restrictions spark debate in Spain

MADRID (AP) — A regional government's move to restrict abortion rights in a large part of central Spain reignited debate Friday on the issue in the southern European country, in the runup to this year's local elections.

Under the new measures adopted by the conservative and far-right coalition governing the Castile and León region, women seeking an abortion there must be offered optional access to unsolicited resources by doctors before starting the procedure.

These include listening to the fetus’s heartbeat, having a 4D ultrasound scan, and getting psychological advice, in a bid to reduce the number of abortions.

Patients are free to turn down any of these suggestions.

The new measures were presented Thursday by the regional government’s far-right vice president, Juan Garcia-Gallardo, whose Vox party is the junior coalition partner of Spain's mainstream conservative Popular Party in Castile and Leon. Spain's regional governments have jurisdiction over public health policy at a regional level. The country faces regional elections in June.

“We are going to offer every parent who wants to see it a real-time video to see the head, the hands, the feet, the fingers. In short, all the parts of the body of the child that is being gestated," Garcia-Gallardo said.

The announcement drew strong criticism across Spain, from the left-wing central government and even from the conservative head of the Madrid region.

Garcia-Gallardo insisted Friday that the measures would immediately enter into force in Castile and León, home to around 2,5 million of Spain's 47 million inhabitants.

But Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias said that no compromises would be allowed in the field of abortion rights.

Most of the many women ministers in the central government rushed to condemn what...