Sánchez vows abortion rights in Constitution before Nov. 29

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised Saturday to write the right to abortion into the Constitution if he stays in office after the Nov. 29 general election, making the pledge at a Socialist rally in Granada.

The promise comes with Sánchez’s party trailing in most private polls and a change to the Constitution out of reach without broad support: the usual route needs three-fifths of both chambers of the Cortes Generales, Spain’s parliament, and polls do not show a majority for it, the Rio Times reported, citing El País.

Sánchez spoke to about 3,000 people, according to organizers, at the Congress Palace in Granada, in southern Spain. El Constitucional reported that it was his second major pre-campaign event in Andalusia, after one in Dos Hermanas on Oct. 10.

The cabinet approved a draft amendment on April 7 to add an abortion guarantee to article 43 of the Constitution, but the project lapsed when parliament was dissolved for the early election, El Constitucional said. An alternative amendment route requires two-thirds of the Congress of Deputies and an absolute majority of the Senate, it said. A government majority alone would not be enough.

The pledge was aimed at the conservative opposition. Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said on the Cadena SER radio network on Friday that the debate over abortion for 16- and 17-year-olds should be reopened, according to El Constitucional. Neither report said whether the party has a formal proposal.

“Being a feminist is not cutting women’s rights,” Sánchez said in reply, in the English rendering published by El Constitucional. He also said “Feijóo is the wrapping, but Abascal is the gift,” a reference to Vox leader Santiago Abascal, and warned of “not an alternation but an involution” if the right wins, as quoted by the Rio Times.

Sánchez also pledged to keep Spain’s euthanasia law and to keep raising the minimum wage “with or without an agreement with the employers’ association,” El Constitucional reported. The Popular Party and Vox did not respond in the reports reviewed by Canada News Media.

Sánchez called the vote on Oct. 5 after the Popular Party, Vox and Junts, a Catalan party, defeated his government’s housing relief measures in Congress on Oct. 2, according to Wikipedia’s election page. Our earlier story is Spain votes Nov. 29 after Sánchez loses housing measures.

The polls favour the right. A Sigma Dos survey for the newspaper El Mundo, published Oct. 19, put the Popular Party at 31.5 per cent, the Socialists at 25.3 per cent and Vox at 19.5 per cent, the Rio Times reported in a poll roundup. A GAD3 poll of 1,077 people for the newspaper ABC, published Oct. 12, projected 133 seats for the Popular Party, 107 for the Socialists and 65 for Vox.

Congress has 350 seats, so 176 are needed for a majority. The GAD3 projection would give the Popular Party and Vox 198 seats combined. The state-run CIS survey, published Oct. 14, put the Socialists well ahead, the Rio Times said, a gap with the private pollsters that the outlet noted without explaining.

Spain is a NATO ally and a member of the European Union, whose trade agreement with Canada, CETA, covers it, so the outcome shapes who represents Spain in Brussels and at NATO for the next term. Canada News Media also reported that Italy and Spain ended border checks after the Ceuta migrant row.

The official campaign starts Nov. 13, according to Wikipedia. Voting is Sunday, Nov. 29, for all 350 seats in Congress and the elected seats in the Senate.

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Via El Constitucional and the Rio Times. Quotes were translated from Spanish by those outlets and have not been checked against the original speech.