Spanish courts command to tell the truth about abortion

Adobe Stock

· The Supreme Court of Spain dismissed the cassation appeal and upheld a decision ordering the association of abortion clinics to remove untrue information and prohibit it from being published in the future.

· The organization stated on its website, inter alia, that abortion does not have any health consequences and that it does not affect fertility or the course of subsequent pregnancies.

· The case was brought by the Spanish Christian Lawyers Association (AAC), which accused abortion clinics of using advertising that mislead the public.

· During the trial, the pro-abortion side did not provide any evidence to defend its theses.

· The appointed experts and witnesses presented opinions proving the universality of, inter alia, depression and post-abortion syndrome, as well as the threat of infertility.

· The Ordo Iuris Institute has prepared an analysis of the case law as well as the legal and factual status of the case.

A several-year lawsuit has come to an end in which the Christian Lawyers Association (AAC) accused the Association of Accredited Voluntary Termination Clinics (ACAI) of using an advertisement for an abortion "service", the content of which misled potential clients. The Supreme Court upheld the second-instance court ruling that the ACAI was required to remove untrue content from its website, was prohibited from posting it in the future, and was ordered to refer to the content of the court ruling in this case on its website.

In its promotional materials, the ACAI, an organization associating as many as 32 abortion centers, assured that abortion is a practice that does not involve any risk. On the Association's website, in the question and answer section, when asked about the safety and possible consequences of having an abortion ("How many times can I terminate a pregnancy? What are the risks of termination? Does it cause infertility?"), The ACAI provided the following answer: " Termination of pregnancy is a surgery that leaves no consequences, so when you get pregnant again, it will be as if you had not had an earlier abortion. There is also no risk of becoming infertile from undergoing one or more abortions. Abortion is the most common surgical intervention in Spain, has no sequelae, and the incidence of complications is very low.

It follows from the judgment of the appellate court that he had no doubts that it was for the purposes of the defendant association to promote the professional and economic activity of its partners. This is exactly what was included in the content of the contested advertisement, which clearly tries to highlight the possible benefits of voluntary abortion, thus promoting the use of services provided by such clinics.

All statements made in the advertisement fell under the weight of the testimony of experts and witnesses who had been called in the course of the trial. Among other things, a gynecologist expert pointed out that the advertisement is biased and may be misleading "because an abortion may have consequences", and information provided by the ACAI "may suggest that an abortion is easier than it really is." He noted that his professional experience confirms that the consequences of abortion may be mood disorders, complications affecting the female genitalia (which may even lead to infertility), and the risk of complications in the mother increases with the number of abortions. He stressed that depression is a particularly common consequence of abortion in the mother. The appellate court stated unequivocally that the information omitted in the advertisement is very important and it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that a consumer who had this knowledge would not opt ​​for the service offered by the abortion clinic.

- The Spanish ruling clearly indicates that even the most common ideology is unable to resist the power of arguments that present the truth. The struggle of liberal and leftist circles to create an international "right to abortion", which so often goes hand in hand with the attempt to present it as a "safe procedure", even compared to "tooth extraction", or simply "decision", does not take into account one of the key factors that need to be addressed sooner or later, i.e. the effects. The Spanish judiciary has confirmed that even in the conditions of legal admissibility of abortion, people engaging in this practice must stand in the truth as to what abortion really is, said Anna Kubacka, an analyst at the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law.