During a press conference on the progress of gender equality in Monaco, the National Council announced that it wanted to restart the debate on the “right to abortion” in January 2019.
“The debate on the decriminalization of abortion will take place earlier than some might have thought,” said Stéphane Valéri, president of the National Council, preaching “a calm and dispassionate approach, far from the elections”.
On the calendar side, a first debate will take place in January 2019 in the Committee on Women’s Rights. And the proposed law, formulated in October 2017 by the councillor Eric Elena, will be examined in public session before the end of June.
At present, article 248 of the Penal Code punishes the use of abortion with fines and imprisonment. With specific exceptions, since 2009:
- if the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act
- it poses a risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman and the future child.
The bill seeks to confirm that the offence of abortion is not characterized when “at the request of the pregnant woman, the pregnancy is interrupted before the end of the twelfth week of pregnancy”.