Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993 TAG: 9305290058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: BERLIN LENGTH: Medium
By a 6-2 vote, the court overturned a liberal measure passed by Parliament last year to reconcile a conflict between laws in western Germany, where abortion had been restricted, and those in the formerly Communist east, where abortion had been permitted on demand.
The Federal Constitutional Court held that, by legalizing abortion, Parliament had violated a constitutional guarantee protecting a fetus's life. The legislature, which had struggled for more than a year before voting 357-284 last June to give women the right to seek abortions, now must write a new law.
Until such legislation is adopted, the court in effect imposed its own law. Although holding that most abortions are illegal, the court said that no punishment may be imposed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy if a woman attends counseling designed to persuade her to bear her child.
The court threw out Germany's system of abortion counseling, a patchwork of services provided by physicians as well as by abortion advocates and opponents. The justices ruled that counseling "may not be open to any result, but must be oriented to the protection of the unborn life." Counselors must be devoted to protecting the fetus, must encourage women to continue their pregnancies and must emphasize assistance offered to mothers by the state, the court said.
The justices said abortion may be sanctioned by the state only if a woman is raped, if her life is endangered or if the fetus has severe genetic deformities. Otherwise, the decision said, German health insurance providers may no longer cover the costs of an abortion. Public hospitals also will be banned from performing abortions, except for those permitted under the ruling.
"To put it mildly, this is a catastrophe," said Regine Hildebrandt, social minister in Brandenburg state in eastern Germany, where women have had access to abortion on demand since 1972.
by CNB