Abolish §218 StGB: “With CDU men like Merz there is a risk of a relapse into the last century”
Wednesday, November 27th, 2024
As part of the current hour, the Hamburg citizenship is debating the topic of “Enabling legal abortions and abolishing Section 218 of the Criminal Code” at the request of the SPD parliamentary group in Hamburg. This is long overdue and not ‘scandalous’, Mr. Merz!”
Gabi Dobusch, equality policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group in Hamburg: “The overwhelming majority of the population – around 80 percent – is of the opinion that self-determined family planning includes being able to decide on an abortion up to the 12th week. Over 80 percent believe it is the pregnant woman’s personal decision whether she wants to continue the pregnancy or not – ‘my body, my choice’. The experts are on the same line. The new regulation for abortions is therefore absolutely necessary so that both medical care and access to reliable information can finally be guaranteed for unintentionally pregnant women. This is still not reliably the case even after Section 219a StGB has been repealed. The threat of punishment has neither in the past nor currently protected unborn life. I still belong to a generation where addresses in the Netherlands were secretly circulated. I remember specific cases in which girls were expelled from school because of pregnancy – but their fathers were not! Anyone who is concerned about protecting unborn life should work with us to provide free contraception, good child care and a reduction in the risk of poverty for single parents. We must close the gender pay gap, the gender care gap and the wealth and pension gaps between the sexes. With backward-looking CDU men like Friedrich Merz, there is a risk of a relapse into the last century. All of these long-overdue projects would be in jeopardy.”
background
Section 218 of the Criminal Code states: “Anyone who terminates a pregnancy will be punished with a prison sentence of up to three years or a fine.” A proposal from SPD, Green and Left MPs in the Bundestag aims to abolish Section 218 of the Criminal Code. The group proposal proposes to legalize the termination of a pregnancy within the first twelve weeks, and after rape within the first 15 weeks. If there is a medical indication, later terminations are also conceivable. The MPs also want to retain the obligation to provide advice.
