Spanish doctors: abortion is traumatic and parents must be informed

Madrid, Spain, May 19, 2009 / 12:17 pm

The president of the Collegial Medical Association in Spain, Juan Jose Rodriguez Sendin, said on Monday that abortion “is not like eating a piece of candy,” but rather is a “traumatic” surgical intervention in which the autonomy of the patient “should be made compatible with the right of parents to be informed.”
 
Speaking to reporters about the approval of a new law on abortion by the Council of Ministers, Rodriguez Sendin said it was an “error” and “unfortunate” that the legal age for an abortion without parent consent was dropped to 16 and that it would create worse problems for families than those that already exist in such cases.
 
He stressed that parents should be “given the opportunity to learn about the problems their daughters might have in order to help them and console them,” pointing out that a girl under the age of 16 having an abortion is not like “eating a piece of candy,” it is a “traumatic surgical intervention.”
 
Rodriguez Sendin also criticized the government for handling the issue at the Ministry of Equality instead of the Ministry of Health, which has better knowledge of the facts, and for not taking into account the opinions of experts in an issue “as controversial” as abortion.
 
He also called on health care professionals to be “responsible” in obtaining the informed consent that patients who want to get an abortion must sign, and he warned doctors to “be sure that women understand what they are signing and to explain whatever they do not understand.”