Catalan Abortion Decree (1936)
카탈루냐 낙태 합법화 법령 (1936)
The decree by which the Generalitat of Catalonia, on 25 December 1936, first legalised abortion in Spain; it appeared in the official gazette on 9 January 1937. Accepting therapeutic, eugenic and ethical reasons as justified, it let women obtain terminations at their own request within the first three months in Generalitat hospitals. Drafted by the anarchist physician Félix Martí Ibáñez, it was abolished with Franco’s victory.
In depth
The Catalan Abortion Decree was part of the Generalitat’s health reforms known as the “eugenic reform of abortion”. The Republican government still treated abortion as a crime, but the Catalan government broke with the penal code and approved the decree on 25 December 1936. It was signed by First Councillor Josep Tarradellas, by Pere Herrera of the CNT for Health and Social Assistance and by Rafael Vidiella of the UGT for Justice, and appeared in the Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, no. 9, on 9 January 1937.
Its preamble called the “eugenic reform” one of the greatest revolutionary conquests in health, bringing under scientific control a practice hitherto carried out in secret by incompetent persons, so as to give working people a safe means of regulating births. Its first five articles, on abortion, read:
Art. 1. The artificial interruption of pregnancy is authorised when carried out in the Hospitals, Clinics and Health Institutions dependent on the Generalitat of Catalonia in which the special service for this purpose is organised.
Art. 2. Reasons of a therapeutic, eugenic or ethical order shall be considered justified grounds for performing abortion.
Art. 3. Requests for non-therapeutic and non-eugenic abortion shall be carried out exclusively at the request of the woman concerned, and none of her family or relatives may later lodge any claim regarding the result of the intervention.
Art. 4. The interruption of pregnancy shall not be carried out when the pregnancy exceeds three months, unless there is therapeutic justification.
Art. 5. The same woman shall not be permitted an interruption of pregnancy more than once a year, unless a therapeutic cause requires it.
Art. 1. Queda autoritzada la interrupció artificial de l'embaràs, efectuada en els Hospitals, Clíniques i Institucions Sanitàries dependents de la Generalitat de Catalunya, en els quals estigui organitzat el servei especial per a tal finalitat.
Art. 2. Es consideraran motius justificats per a la pràctica de l'avortament les raons d'ordre terapèutic, eugènic o ètic.
Art. 3. Els casos de sol·licitud d'avortament no terapèutic ni eugènic s'efectuaran exclusivament a petició de la interessada sense que ningú dels seus familiars o propers puguin presentar després reclamació respecte al resultat de la intervenció.
Art. 4. No s'efectuarà la interrupció de l'embaràs en els casos que ultrapassin dels tres mesos d'aquell, a no ésser que existeixi justificació terapèutica.
Art. 5. No es permetrà a la mateixa dona la interrupció de l'embaràs més d'una vegada a l'any, si no existeix causa terapèutica que ho exigeixi.
The decree was drafted by Félix Martí Ibáñez, a physician and sexologist of the CNT and director general of the Generalitat’s health and social assistance, who also planned “liberatories” for prostitutes, sexual information centres for young people and an Institute of Sexual Sciences. In Barcelona terminations were authorised at the Maternity House, the Hospital de Sant Pau, the Hospital Clínic and other hospitals. Accounts differ as to whether the anarchist health minister Federica Montseny merely sought to extend it to the whole Republic or actually legalised abortion in Republican territory in 1937. Either way the Francoist side abolished it, and abortion in Spain was partly decriminalised again only by the law of 1985.