Decriminalizing abortions: Will Paragraph 218 still be overturned?

Three months before the federal election, a group of MPs introduced an initiative on abortion in parliament. A bill presented on Thursday by representatives of the SPD and the Greens stipulates that abortion should be legal until the end of the twelfth week of pregnancy. The three-day waiting period between consultation and termination should be eliminated. The Union faction announced decisive opposition to the project.

According to the initiators’ wishes, the proposal should be voted on before the new Bundestag elections on February 23rd. Accordingly, 236 of the current 733 members of the Bundestag had signed the application by Thursday.

However, there was initially no support from the ranks of the Union and FDP, on the contrary. The CDU/CSU opposition in the Bundestag reacts outraged to the proposed law. Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz particularly sharply attacked Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who co-signed the bill as an SPD MP. “I am really horrified that the same Chancellor, who repeatedly speaks of cohesion, of getting along and of community spirit, appears on the list of this group application with his signature.”

The aim of the initiative is to attempt to “abolish paragraph 218 as quickly as possible at the end of the electoral term,” said Merz. “It’s scandalous what the Chancellor is doing.” It is an issue “that polarizes the country like no other, and that is more likely than any other to trigger another completely unnecessary major socio-political conflict in Germany.”

Abortions are currently illegal according to Section 218 of the Criminal Code. In fact, they remain unpunished for the first twelve weeks if the woman seeks advice beforehand. Abortion also remains unpunished if there are medical reasons or if it is carried out because of rape. The abolition of the paragraph has been debated for years.

SPD MP Leni Breymaier told the AFP news agency that she knew of “a number of” MPs “who are not signing today but will agree in the end – including from the other factions”. According to her, the initiative was actually only planned for next spring. However, the break in the traffic light coalition “pulled the organizers’ feet away” because they no longer expected a “progressive majority” in parliament after the new elections.

The aim is for the Bundestag plenary to debate the proposal for the first time in the first week of December, said SPD MP Carmen Wegge. A vote could then take place in January.

It is in the interest of the initiators “that this does not become a loud election campaign issue,” emphasized Green Party representative Ulle Schauws. There is a chance that the change in legislation will find a majority. Schauws emphasized that there had also been “good discussions with colleagues from the Union”.

“As the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, we will defend ourselves against this with all our might,” said Merz and deputy group leader Dorothee Bär to the AFP news agency. She criticized the fact that before the new elections in February “facts should be created at the last minute and for such an ethically and morally highly complex decision about the termination of human life.” For the Union, the proposal amounts to “a breach of the dam in our understanding of values”.

The Left group in the Bundestag wants to support the proposal. Its chairwoman Heidi Reichinnek spoke of a “step in the right direction”. But she wants “a right to advice” and the abolition of the obligation.

The bill now presented is intended to explicitly decriminalize abortion. The new regulations should no longer be anchored in criminal law, but rather in the Pregnancy Conflict Act. Health insurance companies should also cover the costs of abortions in the future.

Abortion after the end of the twelfth week should therefore remain fundamentally illegal, but – as under the current legal situation – it can be legal until the beginning of birth if there is a medical indication. The prerequisite for this is a medical opinion.