Spanish lawmakers vote to legalize abortion, instate parental notification

[popehippo]

Spain's lower house voted Thursday to lift legal restrictions on abortion up to 14 weeks. The measure is expected to pass the Senate.

From the Associated Press:

Under the current law, which dates back to 1985, Spanish women could in theory go to jail for getting an abortion outside certain strict limits -- up to week 12 in case of rape and

Comments

[perfectisafault]

Yay! At least this is a step in the right direction for a predominantly Catholic country. Now if only we could get more of the Latin American countries on board (Cuba being the exception).

[perfectisafault]

Yup, it's been legal since the Revolution (around the early 1960s)

[perfectisafault]

From wiki: Cuba has unrestricted access to legal abortion and an abortion rate of 58.6 per 1000 pregnancies in 1996 compared to a Caribbean average of 35, a Latin American average of 27, and a European average of 48. Contraceptive use is estimated at 79% (in the upper third of countries in the Western Hemisphere).[104]

That's actually pretty impressive. 4 for you, Cuba coco.

[yunghustlaz]

Cuba also has maternity leave that lasts a full year, free HIV anti-retrovirals for HIV positive citizens, free sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, equal rights for same-sex and heterosex couples (though same-sex couples can't get married, everyone has equal rights by default so, you know), a state mandate on women's rights and minority rights (as is common with all socialist nations), 36% representation by women in the government (6th highest in the world), and free higher education at state universities.

Cuba's not so great on some political rights, but since Raul came to power, things have been steadily improving and opening up, at least thanks in part to the US ceasing to terrorize Cuba quite as much. Boyo, and it was much, much worse before the communists came to power.

[yunghustlaz]

Cuba is an underratedly awesome country!

[yunghustlaz]

What do you think Cuba was before Castro? It was a broken republic run by Batista, a US puppet state that even our government recognized was rife with police brutality, corruption, and a complete lack of social or economic justice, absolutely barbaric. It's not like the 26th July movement was swept to power from a fringe, it was through massive popular support. Not to mention, that Batista responded to this popular support by killing and torturing the population, and suspending the constitution

[yunghustlaz]

I acknowledged it has political prisoners, but the US does too, EU countries do, Israel has some 1,700. Most of the world does, it's a horrible thing for sure and I support Human Rights Watch and all of these other groups working for their release, I'm merely stating that Cuba, beyond the political issues, is a very empathetic socialist state, with better services for their civilians that we do in the US. We don't even have healthcare, what a lot of good our 'democracy' gives us (mind you, true democracy would come in the form of syndicalism and anarcho-socialism, probably the closest thing we could get to good, functioning direct democracy