Tens of thousands of pro-life demonstrators have marched through Spanish cities protesting against a controversial bill which will allow abortion on demand.
The Bill, which was passed by the Spanish Senate last month, will introduce abortion on demand up to 14 weeks into a pregnancy.
The law is expected to come into force in July, but pro-lifers are outraged at the liberalisation.
Pro-lifers
Leonor Tamayo, who attended a rally in Madrid with her three children, said: “We are here to make all of Spain aware that abortion is a crime and that you can’t just turn a crime into a right with the stroke of a pen”.
Marta Puig, another protestor, said: “We are demanding the right to life. The children are not guilty if their parents want or don’t want them.
“They should have thought about it before”.
Socialist
Spain’s current law allows abortion if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s psychological or physical health.
Abortions can also be obtained in cases of rape and when there are signs of foetal abnormality.
However, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has attempted to portray the liberalisation as a triumph for women’s rights.
He said: “No woman can be sent to jail for terminating her pregnancy or threatened with that. That’s the difference”.
The protests took place in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Seville.
Last October up to two million people took to the streets in Spain to protest against the Government’s plans to weaken the country’s abortion law.
Abortions
Recent figures from the Institute for Family Policies revealed that in 2008 there were 115,812 abortions in Spain.
The UK had the highest number of abortions in Europe with 215,975 terminations taking place in that year.