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HEALTH

‘Untenable’: Legalise abortions in first trimester, urges German commission

Abortion should be legalised in Germany in the early stages of pregnancy, a commission set up by the government recommended on Monday.

Published: 15 April 2024 17:26 CEST
During a flash mob organised by the Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination on Monday, activists hold a ribbon calling for the removal of paragraph 218, which would remove abortion from the criminal code in Germany.
During a flash mob organised by the Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination on Monday, activists hold a ribbon calling for the removal of paragraph 218, which would remove abortion from the criminal code in Germany. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Gollnow

Under current German law, abortion is illegal but tolerated in practice for women who are up to 12 weeks pregnant and have received compulsory counselling.

There are also exceptions for women who have been raped or whose life is in danger.

The commission, set up last year by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government, recommended relaxing the law in a 600-page report published on Monday.

The current situation is “untenable”, said Liane Woerner, a law professor and member of the group, urging the government to “take action to make abortion legal and unpunishable” in the first trimester.

READ ALSO: Will abortion in Germany soon become legal?

The commission also recommended examining whether abortion could be made legal at up to 22 weeks.

In the later stages of pregnancy, abortion should remain illegal, but “does not necessarily have to be punishable”, Woerner said.

The government will now study the report “carefully to determine the next steps”, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann told a press conference, warning against “debates that could inflame our society”.

The Centre for Reproductive Rights NGO welcomed the commission’s recommendations, saying Germany now had a “historic opportunity to modernise the law”.

“German law on abortion stigmatises women who seek abortion care and demeans their ability to make autonomous and informed decisions about their pregnancies,” said Adriana Lamackova, associate director for the NGO in Europe.

Reforming Germany’s abortion law was a flagship pledge of the current government, a coalition between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal FDP.

READ ALSO: Reader question – Is abortion illegal in Germany?

In 2022, the German parliament voted to remove a Nazi-era law that limited the information doctors and clinics could provide about abortions.

Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann on Monday declined to comment on whether abortion could now be legalised before Germany’s next election in 2025.

“It will depend on how the debate develops,” she told a government press conference.

The opposition conservatives and the far right have rejected any relaxation of the law.

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CRIME

German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

A German court has convicted one of the country's most controversial far-right politicians, Björn Höcke, of deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.

Published: 15 May 2024 08:43 CEST
German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

The court fined Höcke, 52, of the far-right AfD party, €13,000 for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.

Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern-day Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

The former high school history teacher claimed not to have been aware that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely not guilty”.

Höcke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday saying”.

But prosecutors argued that Höcke used the phrase in full knowledge of its “origin and meaning”.

They had sought a six-month suspended sentence plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organisation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, after the trial, Höcke said the “ability to dissent is in jeopardy”.

“If this verdict stands, free speech will be dead in Germany,” he added.

Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, is gunning to become Germany’s first far-right state premier when the state holds regional elections in September.

With the court ordering only a fine rather than a jail term, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy at the elections.

‘AfD scandals’

The trial is one of several controversies the AfD is battling ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But its support has wavered since the start of 2024, as it contends with scandals including allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website.

Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Höcke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.

He has called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and urged a “180-degree shift” in the country’s culture of remembrance.

Höcke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 federal election.

READ ALSO: How worried should Germany be about the far-right AfD after mass deportation scandal?

He had also been due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “Everything for…” and inciting the audience to reply “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.

However, the court decided to separate the proceedings for the second charge, announced earlier this month, because the defence had not had enough time to prepare.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Höcke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked on 21,000 times on the Facebook page of AfD Sachsen-Anhalt alone.

Höcke’s defence lawyer Philip Müller argued the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offending statement was only brought to the public’s notice by the trial.

Germany’s domestic security agency has labelled the AfD in Thuringia a “confirmed” extremist organisation, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

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