According to the website of the Red Madre Foundation, which assists women in crisis pregnancies, the method used during the second or third trimester of pregnancy is known as “partial delivery,” which means that the abortionist “grasps the fetus’s feet and pulls them until the lower part of the head is exposed. Scissors are then used to open the base of the neck into which a catheter is inserted to suction out the brain.
However, according to the TC, the abortion “has to be carried out in the centers of the public health network of the autonomous community itself, except in supposedly exceptional cases in which the public health service cannot facilitate it due to widespread conscientious objection.”
The Constitutional Court ruled that “in the prosecuted case it was not proven” that the doctors had exercised that right individually, in advance and in writing.
These requirements were not included in the abortion law passed in 2010, which is applicable in the case, since the incident dates back to 2014 when that law was still in effect, Díez explained.
In the March 2023 revision of the 2010 law, these requirements are established in Article 19 Section 2. In addition, the creation of a register of conscientious objectors — which still doesn’t exist — is included in Article 19 Section 3.
Díez disagrees with the ruling of the TC justices and questions “their impartiality.”