The HVD Federal Association calls for the deletion without replacement of Section 219a of the German Criminal Code (StGB), which criminalizes so-called advertising for abortions, as well as age-independent access to free contraceptives. The draft law presented by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) to improve information on abortion does not even begin to meet the goal it has set itself of making it easier for affected women to access information on abortion and, in particular, to create legal certainty for doctors who perform abortions.
Unwanted pregnant women and the doctors who care for them need neither state bureaucratization nor dubious studies on mental well-being after abortions, but rather a supportive attitude and measures by the state to promote the right to self-determination in the context of reproductive health, according to a recent statement by the HVD Federal Presidium.
“The draft law that emerged as a compromise is unacceptable, as it continues to severely restrict doctors in their ability to provide information and unwanted pregnant women are denied low-threshold access to necessary information,” explains Dr. Ines P. Scheibe, member of the HVD Federal Presidium and co-founder of the Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination.
The so-called “advertising ban” was introduced into the German Criminal Code by the National Socialists in 1933; the law was retained in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, even a reference on the homepage of a doctor’s practice that the procedure is offered at all is considered “advertising”. In November 2017, gynaecologist Kristina Hänel from Giessen was sentenced to a fine for this information, and the paragraph has been the subject of heated debate ever since.
“For humanists, the current discussion about § 219a StGB shows how abortions in Germany continue to be a social taboo and criminalized, and how freedom of information and patients’ rights are being curtailed in our society,” continues Ines P. Scheibe.
The Humanist Association of Germany is a founding member of the Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination and had already called for the abolition of Section 219a in a broad alliance of associations in April 2018 and reaffirmed this in an open letter to the Federal Government in October 2018.
