Germans Pass Convoluted Abortion Law

The Parliament merged the old East German and West German abortion laws into one Thursday, ending five years of legislative disagreement with a convoluted new law that makes abortion a crime but allows women to undergo the procedure without being punished.

Although lawmaking bodies of many countries have a hard time coming up with abortion laws acceptable to all, the Bundestag had the unique difficulty of having to seek common ground between the diametrically opposed abortion policies of two former nations.

In East Germany, abortions were easily available in early pregnancy and paid for by the state. In West Germany, they were illegal and available only if the woman had been raped, if the baby was deformed or if the woman could prove severe economic hardship.

Under the compromise law passed Thursday, abortion will officially be illegal. But German women who receive counseling will be allowed to undergo the procedure anyway, up to the 13th week of pregnancy.

Abortion counselors are supposed to explain to pregnant women that an embryo is a living being. Any relative who pressures a woman to have the abortion during this decision-making phase may be fined or sentenced to up to five years in jail.

Abortion foe Claudia Nolte, a former East German who is Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s minister for the family, senior citizens, women and youth, refused to vote for the new law, saying it went against her Roman Catholic beliefs.

Petra Blaess--a Parliament member from the former East German Communist Party, now reformed and renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism--said she disliked the new law because it looked like “a traffic light showing both red and green.”

Thursday’s vote was not the first time the Parliament of reunited Germany tried to enact an abortion law. One passed in June, 1992, gave women the right to abortion if they received counseling. But it was challenged as a violation of the constitutional requirement that the state protect human life.