The bill has yet to pass through the Spanish Senate. Spanish deputies approved on Thursday, in first reading, a bill that creates “menstrual permits” for women who suffer painful periods and strengthens access to abortion in public hospitals. This text was adopted with 190 votes in favour, 154 against and 5 abstentions.
“This legislature is a legislature of feminist conquests,” the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, of the radical left-wing party Podemos, an ally of the Socialists of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in the Government, greeted the deputies.
“We recognize menstrual health as part of the right to health and we fight against stigma and silence,” she added.
first country in europe
The bill does not specify the length of sick leave that doctors can grant to women suffering from painful menstruation.
When this text is definitively adopted, Spain will become the first country in Europe and one of the few in the world to integrate this measure into its legislation, such as Japan, Indonesia or Zambia in particular.
However, it arouses reluctance, especially within the UGT union, one of the two largest unions in the country, which fears a possible brake on the hiring of women by employers wanting to avoid these absences.
This “menstrual leave” is one of the flagship measures of a much broader bill that also plans to strengthen access to abortion in public hospitals, which perform less than 15% of abortions in the country due, in particular, to the massive conscientious objection of doctors.
It must also allow girls to have abortions without their parents’ permission at ages 16 and 17 by reversing a requirement introduced by a previous Conservative government in 2015.
Reinforcement of sexual education
Abortion was decriminalized in Spain in 1985 and then legalized in 2010, but abortion continues to be a right riddled with pitfalls in this country with a strong Catholic tradition.
This bill also provides for a strengthening of sexual education in schools, as well as the free distribution of contraceptives or menstrual hygiene products in secondary schools.
Spain is a country considered a benchmark in the field of women’s rights in Europe, especially since the approval in 2004 of a law on gender violence. Claiming to be feminist, the Sánchez government has more women than men.
Source: BFM TV
