CZdenka Rybova's Movement for Life wants abortion outlawed here.
Posted on 04/11/2003 4:27:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
But family-planning association says ban here is 'impossible'
Anti-abortion activists say a push to ban abortions in Slovakia has revitalized their efforts to outlaw the procedure in the Czech Republic.
"They are an inspiration to us here," said Zdenka Rybova, vice president of the Movement for Life, the nation's largest anti-abortion group. But the leader of a family-planning group said such a ban would be impossible in the Czech Republic.
In March, the Slovak Parliament rejected a bill sponsored by the country's Christian Democratic Party that would have banned most abortions.
The party has petitioned the country's Constitutional Court, saying that the nation's 1958 abortion law contradicts Slovakia's 1992 constitution.
The 1958 law, which was amended in 1986, allows abortion through the 12th week of pregnancy. However, Article 15 of the country's constitution proclaims that everyone has a right to live and that human life is worth protecting before birth. The court is expected to hear the case this month.
In Prague, Rybova said her 500-member group is working with lawmakers to change the Czech criminal code's legal definition of abortion to the "killing of a conceived, yet unborn, child."
She would not say which politicians are cooperating with her group, but she said she expects Parliament to discuss the issue in May.
"Changing the law won't solve the problem, but it will help," she said.
Her group wants all abortions outlawed except to save the life of the mother.
Marek Ondracek, a spokesman for the Czech Christian Democratic Party, said the party has no plans to introduce any abortion-related legislation during the current session of Parliament.
The party, which is a junior partner in the government's ruling coalition, is anti-abortion, he said. "Human life should be protected from conception to death," Ondracek said.
Czech law allows women 18 years and older to obtain abortions through the 12th week of pregnancy. Minors need their parents' permission for an abortion.
Radim Uzel, executive director of the Czech Family Planning Association, which supports abortion rights, said Slovakia will likely restrict access to abortion.
"I'm afraid [Slovakia's ban will eventually be passed] because it is the so-called 'Polish Way,'" he said, referring to a 1997 law that outlawed most abortions in Poland. Uzel said that enacting a ban in the Czech Republic would be impossible because the Catholic Church, which strongly opposes abortion, is not as influential here as it is in Poland and Slovakia.
About 90 percent of Poles are Catholics. In Slovakia, the figure is about 60 percent. In the Czech Republic, nearly 40 percent of the population identifies itself as atheist, slightly outnumbering Catholics. Rybova said a majority of the members of her group are Catholic.
Uzel said that a ban on abortions in Slovakia would not increase the number of women who seek legal abortions in the Czech Republic because Czech law only allows citizens and foreigners living here on long-term visas to undergo the procedure.
In Poland, abortion-rights activists say the ban has driven as many as 200,000 Polish women to obtain illegal abortions each year.
The number of abortions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has been declining steadily since the 1989 revolution that toppled the communist regime. The Czech Health Ministry tallied 28,850 legal abortions in 2002.
Uzel credits education campaigns and the increased availability of contraceptives with spurring the decline.
"The reason for high abortions during communist times is that contraception was not available, and the abortion law was very permissive," he said.
In 1988, 493,863 forms of the intrauterine device (IUD) and hormonal contraceptives were distributed in Czechoslovakia. In 2000, more than 1 million such devices and drug doses were distributed in the Czech Republic alone.
Rybova said her group also believes that such hormonal contraceptives as birth-control pills cause abortions. However, they are not demanding that such drugs be banned because there are other medical uses for them, she said.
ABORTION NUMBERS
Number of legal abortions performed in the Czech Republic, 1994-2002:
• 1994 53,674
• 1995 48,286
• 1996 46,506
• 1997 43,261
• 1998 40,935
• 1999 37,157
• 2000 32,530
• 2001 30,358
• 2002 28,850
Source: Health Ministry
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Honorable woman. The world could use many more like her.
They could always stop being liberal whores. It's free, and no one dies.
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