Dutch Woman Will be Prosecuted for Illegal Late-Term Abortion in Spain 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 31, 2008
Amsterdam, Netherlands (LifeNews.com) — A Dutch woman will be prosecuted on charges that she had an illegal abortion at one of the several Spain abortion centers that have been shut down for violating Spain’s late-term abortion laws. The Netherlands’ law allows abortions up to 24 weeks into pregnancy in rare circumstances and the woman was past that point.
Reports indicate she was 27 weeks pregnant at the time of the abortion, well past the point of viability for unborn children.
Initially, the woman was freed after spending four weeks in prison.
But, on Thursday, a judge rejected her request for an injunction in the case, her lawyer Gerard Spong told the London Daily Mail newspaper.
Spong told the newspaper he doesn’t think the woman has violated any law because Spain has a provision allowing late-term abortions if the woman needs it for mental health reasons, even though abortions negatively affect women’s mental health.
"My view was and is that as long as Spanish judicial authorities do not make any decision that this woman has committed an offense … the Dutch judicial authorities should abstain (from investigating)," he said.
Attorneys for the 27-year-old woman previously said Dutch doctors did not want to violate the law against late-term abortions there so they referred her to the Spanish abortion centers.
She ultimately had an abortion at the Ginemedex abortion facility, one of several Spanish police closed down.
The investigation began when her boyfriend talked with police after she lied and told him she gave birth to a stillborn baby in a Dutch hospital.
A December 2007 poll found residents of the Netherlands strongly oppose abortions in the latter stages of pregnancy.
Maurice de Hond conducted a poll of Dutch residents and found that 64 percent believe abortions should be legal in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in all circumstances. Just 30 percent said they opposed legalized abortion and another 6 percent were unsure of their position.
However, an overwhelming 70 percent of the 1,000 Dutch adults in the December 8 poll said they don’t think “an abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy is admissible.”
Only 17 percent of people living in the Netherlands favor late-term abortions and another 13 percent said they were unsure where they stood.
