Parliament Halts LSNS Bill Limiting Abortions

Bratislava, June 13 (TASR) – MPs at a parliamentary session on Wednesday halted a vote on a bill restricting abortions sponsored by far-right People Party Our Slovakia’s (LSNS), as 76 MPs voted for a motion submitted by Smer-SD MP Juraj Blanar in which he proposed not to hold a vote on this bill at all.

LSNS in its bill wanted to tighten Slovakia’s abortion policy and ban arbitrary and unjustified abortions. According to LSNS, abortions should be allowed only when the life of a pregnant woman is in peril, when a pregnancy was the result of a crime or when a foetus has a demonstrable genetic defect.

Independent MP Richard Vasecka said at a press conference in Parliament that he will draw up his own bill banning abortions that lack very serious reasons for them. He will submit the draft law to this effect for the next Parliamentary session. Vasecka also expressed dissatisfaction about the fact that LSNS’s bill was halted in Parliament. Even though LSNS is an unacceptable political party for him, he would have voted for the LSNS-sponsored abortion bill.

Earlier on Wednesday, Dennik N daily reported that some activists entered the Parliament building dressed in nun robes to protest against LSNS’s bill. The robes resembled the costumes used in the American TV series The Handmaid’s Tale, which follows a dystopian world wherein fertile women are forced into sexual and child-bearing servitude due to a demographic crisis. The symbolic protest was organised in cooperation with the extra-parliamentary Progressive Slovakia party, writes the daily.