HEALTH CARE * LES SOINS

,Abortion rights 'issue cont'inues to divide east and west Germany

Nomi Morris In Canada it was the case of Dr. Henry Morgentaler. In the US, it was Roe versus Wade. In Germany, it's known as Paragraph 218 of the federal constitution. The law governing abortion, which is controversial in most Western countries, has plunged the new Germany into a unique dilemma: reconciling the abortion policies of two radically different nations. When East and West Germany were in the process of signing their unification treaty in the fall of 1990, the abortion issue threatened to hold up the deal, so practices were left as they were on both sides of the old Cold War

divide. "Today, we have two contradictory legal situations in one country," says Chris Lange, a social worker with the Protestant Church of Berlin. In the territory that used to be called the German Democratic Republic, women still have the right to abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. But western Germany continues to treat abortion as an offence under the criminal code, available Nomi Morris is a freelance writer living in

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"Many women from southern states like Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria go north to have their abortions. It's called 'abortion tourism.' 5 - Chris Lange only in select cases and with the approval of two doctors. Politicians have until the end of the year to come up with a new law for the whole of Germany, a legislative task that is proving to be the toughest the new Bundestag the federal parliament - has yet faced. Opposition parties and women's groups want the East German pro-choice model applied across the country. But conservatives, including rightists within Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), are using the opportunity to push for even tighter controls against abortion. The debate isn't restricted to east-west; within western Germany, the current law is applied more liberally in northern cities 19

like Bremen and Berlin than in the predominantly Catholic south. "Many women from southern states like Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria go north to have their abortions," Lange says. "It's called 'abortion tourism.' " Paragraph 218, a constitutional clause situated between mass murder and murder, is federal law, but each state regulates the way abortions are performed, thereby controlling access to the procedure. State governments fund birth control counselling centres, but in southern Germany all but a few are run by the Catholic Church. Technically, abortions are only allowed when certain contraindications to pregnancy are present; these medical, eugenic or "social" reasons must be listed on LE I1er JUIN 1992

a form that is signed by two physicians. Social indications are cited in about 90% of the abortions performed in western Germany. Suzanne Seeland, a media consultant who has been following the abortion debate in Germany for 20 years, says the government's initial draft for a new law sought to cut down on the number of reasons that could be used to seek a legal abortion. Currently, social factors such as unemployment, inadequate housing, being single, or being a student, can be cited by a doctor as the reason for approving an abortion. The CDU proposal attempted to restrict the social factors to rape or incest. "The doctor would also be obliged to take notes so you have something like a paper with minutes that can eventually be controlled by a court," Seeland says. "It's crazy. It's really a shock." The prospect of women and their doctors being taken to court is real. In a highly publicized case in the Schwabian town of Memmingen, nearly 200 women were forced to testify in open court about their reasons for having an abortion. This was to allow judges to decide whether their reasons for seeking an abortion were legitimate. The case began in 1986, when police seized confidential doctorpatient files from a gynecologist's office after a tax auditor felt there were a few too many invoices marked "IR." It stands for interruptio, German medical shorthand for aborting a pregnancy. Last fall an appeals court upheld the 21/2-year jail sentence given to the gynecologist, Dr. Horst Theissen, for performing illegal abortions. The judgement sent a chill

Nearly two decades have passed since abortion policies were coincidentally put to a legal test in both East and West Germa-

revive the whole debate. Conservative politicians are exploiting unity to drive the whole thing backwards." In large part, the economic and social stresses of unification have simply pushed abortion rights low on the list of priorities for women in eastern Germany. -As well, the feminist movement is less developed in the east than in the west. But Ortlieb says many eastern Germans believe the Communist abortion law was used too freely at a time when neither counselling nor contraception were readily available. In fact, statistics have shown that the per capita rate of abortion was no higher in East Germany than West Germany, despite the free-choice policy. And the rate has declined further in the 21/2 years since the Berlin Wall cracked open. But mandatory counselling, which some politicians are promoting, does not seem like such a bad idea to many eastern Germans, Ortlieb says. Kohl's coalition partner, the Liberal Party, has tried to bridge the political stalemate by drafting a compromise bill in which abortion would remain in the criminal code, yet be allowed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy - after mandatory counselling has taken place. Many Germans are now wondering what it could mean to women's rights when something as subjective as "counselling" can be legislated. "I'm sorry, but this is something the federal chancellor can't decide for me," says Ortlieb. "Helmut Kohl's history is different than mine." Whatever compromise is struck by the new abortion law, it is unlikely that it will change the status quo: different interpretations in the different regions of the country, and enormous anger among the women of eastern Germany at losing yet another social

ny. The Supreme Court of West Germany ruled that the constitutional right to protection of life applied to the unborn, a verdict that kept abortion in the criminal code. In East Germany, the abortion law is legendary as one of the very few times during 40 years of Communist rule when an actual debate and vote of confidence was held in the Volkskammer (parliament), rather than being dictated from above. Since then, women in eastern Germany have had abortion on demand - free of charge. The procedure has generally been done only in hospitals, with a minimum of 2 nights' stay. Only after several abortions did a woman have to explain her decision. Today, when they stand to lose their abortion rights, women in eastern Germany are surprisingly quiet. Marlies Ortlieb, a manager at the German Democratic Women's Association in Berlin, says she's had a hard time convincing women to take to the streets against Paragraph 218. "In my opinion, women haven't fully grasped what's about to be taken away from them," she says. "There was a societal consensus here that worked for 20 years." She says most eastern Germans are against criminalizing abortion, but it's hard for them to imagine what it would actually be like. "Many women cannot believe that it is possible for the Bundestag to decide what's in their heads." She believes it is unfair that through Germany's pro-choice in western Germany the threat of camp. "If each doctor has to fear his jail hangs over the heads of womfiles might be searched and he en, but not men who are party to might be pulled into court, who an unwanted pregnancy. And she the hell is going to perform an is cynical about the reasons for abortion in the future?" Seeland the current controversy. "With benefit of the former Communist asks. unification there was an excuse to era.a JUNE 1, 1992

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