Wednesday December 22, 2021
Advertising ban is removed
Traffic light goes to abortion law quickly
The Ministry of Justice and Family want to tick off the resolutions of the coalition agreement right at the beginning of the legislature: Both the abolition of the advertising ban for abortions and the reform of the state’s handling of transsexuals should now be done quickly.
Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann wants to present a bill to abolish the advertising ban on abortion as early as January. The FDP politician announced this in an interview with the Funke media group. The SPD, Greens and FDP agreed in the coalition agreement to delete Section 219a of the Criminal Code. It prohibits doctors from making information about abortions publicly available.
Paragraph 219a means “a criminal risk for doctors if, for example, they provide factual information about abortions on their homepage or on the Internet,” said Buschmann. That is absurd. “Because many women who are wrestling with the question of an abortion also look for advice on the Internet. But it cannot be the case that the doctors most likely to provide information are not allowed to provide information there.”
Family Minister Anne Spiegel made a similar statement. “The abolition of paragraph 219a of the penal code, with which women are stigmatized and doctors are criminalized, is quickly on the agenda,” said the Green politician of the “taz”. She will discuss this with Bushmann shortly. “The abolition of the transsexual law also affects both departments,” said Spiegel. “We can tackle both of these quickly.”
The traffic light parties want to replace the 40 year old transsexual law, which is felt by many trans people as humiliating, with a “self-determination law”. For example, the current law stipulates that those affected may only officially change their first name and gender after a psychological report and a court decision – in doing so, they often have to put up with very intimate questions.