Pedro Sánchez and Isabel Díaz Ayuso are at the center of the abortion controversy this week. The central government will take the regional government to court because it is the only administration in all of Spain that has refused to list conscientious objectors, even though the law requires it. Now, the President of the Government and the President of the Community of Madrid, two politicians who face each other almost daily in a dispute in which they leave the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on the sidelines, have clashed in public over voluntary terminations of pregnancy referred to private clinics.
Sánchez pulled out his arsenal this morning by writing on social networks that Madrid entrusts 99% of abortions to private clinics, as stated in a report from the Ministry of Health prepared with data from 2024. “We will not allow it. For this reason, today the Government will ask the State Prosecutor’s Office to present a contentious-administrative appeal before the TSJ of Madrid. We will defend the rights of Madrid women in the courts”, announced the president.
Ayuso’s response was almost immediate. He did not want to question the data, which is real, but instead attacked the side of the database that he refuses to create. “We defend the right of professionals to conscientious objection. Only a dictator can force them to do what they don’t want. And the PSOE of Castilla-La Mancha sent 2,000 abortions to Madrid last year,” the president said.
The data and facts released by both allow for interpretation. In fact, in Madrid, governed by the PP, practically all abortions are entrusted to private healthcare. The same thing happens in Andalusia, still in the hands of the People’s Party, but it must be added that Asturias, where the Socialists govern, appears on the same list. The intervention, however, is free in all cases.
From Acai, the association of clinicians accredited for the voluntary termination of pregnancy, they believe that this debate generates great confusion among women: “IVE is a free service for women, because it is carried out in affiliated centers. Not clarifying this point leads women to think that they will have to pay for their operation, which is not true”. And he adds: “In Madrid the majority of women have free access to abortion and those who don’t have it, a small group, often do it because they prefer to avoid the referral circuit, which on many occasions is stigmatizing.”
(News in development)
