Abortion in Francoist Spain and the transition period was illegal. Francoists opposed abortion because it interfered with Spanish population growth. Abortion was only briefly legal in Spain in this period in Catalonia in the final days of the Spanish Civil War.
Abortion was formally made a crime against the state by Franco in January 1941, with criminal sentences, fines, and loss of rights for women, medical professionals who performed abortions, and pharmacists who provided drugs to facilitate abortions. The state made huge efforts to keep women ignorant about birth control and abortion. But many women still had abortions. Starting in the mid-1960s, feminists took up the cause of abortion rights. By the 1970s, women were going to England, Wales, the Netherlands, and North Africa for abortions.
Following the death of Franco in 1975, more serious discussions about legalizing abortion began to take place. The PSOE (PSOE) and the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) both tried to legalize abortion and divorce in the first draft of the 1978 Spanish Constitution. While a compromise related to divorce was reached, the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) and the People's Coalition both opposed it, and were able to insert language into the constitution that undermined future potential abortion rights. Abortion reform was finally passed in 1983, but did not become legal until 1985 as a result of constitutional objections by the Partido Popular (PP), or People's Party. The PP, along with anti-abortion activists, would continue to try to hinder legal abortion in Spain.
Spanish abortion ideology
Hispanic eugenics and pronatalism were viewed as key components of addressing the decline in the Spanish birth rate and the need for an increased population size to serve the needs of the Spanish state during the Francoist period. Policies around this eugenics program involved bans on abortion, infanticide, contraception and information around contraception. This practice was started as policy during the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, discontinued by the Second Republic and then picked up again as a national level policy by Francoists. Anything that was viewed by the state as interfering with women's reproduction activities and increasing the size of the Spanish population were viewed as being in opposition to the state. All activities that stopped this were soon defined by the regime as crimes.Nash, Mary.: "Pronatalism and motherhood in Franco's Spain". In G. BOCK & P. THANE. (ed.): Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s-1950s. Routledge, London & New York, 1992, pp. 160-173.Eiroa, Matilde. "Mujer y política social en los primeros años del franquismo: Málaga 1941". In P. Ballarín and T. Ortiz (eds.): La mujer en Andalucía. Primer Encuentro Interdisciplinario de Estudios de la Mujer. Vol. 1. Granada, 1990, pp. 397-406.
Eugenics in Spain in the late 1930s and through to the 1940s was not based on race, but instead on people's political alignment with the regime. Ricardo Campos stated, "The racial question during the Franco era is complex." He explained that "despite the similarities of the Franco regime with the Italian and German fascism and the interest that the eugenics provoked, the strong Catholicism of the regime prevented its defense of the eugenic policies that were practiced in Nazi Germany." He added: "It was very difficult to racialize the Spanish population biologically because of the mixture that had been produced historically." Vallejo-Nágera in his 1937 work, Eugenics of the Hispanicity and Regeneration of the Race defined Hispanicness around spirituality and religion. The goal was the "strengthening psychologically" of the phenotype. Because Catholicism was opposed to negative eugenics, the only way to fight the degradation was through repression of abortion, euthanasia and contraception.
Anarchist ideas about abortion in the early Francoist period were informed by opinions exemplified by Director of General Health and Social Assistance of the Generalitat of Catalonia Félix Martí Ibáñez during the Civil War, with a policy called "Eugenics Reform" that included support of abortion by removing it as a clandestine practice. Their policies also included support of working-class women, by attempting to give them economic relief so that elective abortions were not needed. During the Civil War, the only women's anti-fascist group to support the legalization of abortion was the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Mujeres Libres never mentioned abortion or contraception. Support of policies in favor of legalization were consequently largely made by leftist men. Women did not see abortion as part of a policy of women's liberation. Catalonia was the only area of Spain where abortion was legal, and this occurred only after the start of the war.
Doctors in Francoist Spain had two roles: to be moral protectors of Spanish reproduction and to provide science-based medical services. This put male doctors in charge of women's birth control. When medical doctors in the Second Republic and early Francoist period defended birth control, it was on the eugenics ground that it protected the health of both women and children, especially as it related to the spread of genetic disease and the spread of tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases.
History of abortion
Francoist period (1939–1975)
On 24 January 1941, abortion was formally made a crime against the state by Franco.Boletín Oficial del Estado. Madrid, Spain. 2 February 1941. It had already been a crime based on the Código Penal de 1932. Doctors who performed abortions could be given prison sentences of between 6 years and 1 day to 14 years and 8 months, along with fines from 2,500 to 50,000 pesetas. Doctors lost their professional qualifications for 10 to 20 years. Pharmacists, or anyone in their employ, who gave any substance or medicine that were considered abortive could face the loss of their professional qualifications for 5 to 10 years, and fines of between 1,000 and 25,000 pesetas. Any doctor, midwife, or other medical practitioner who observed an abortion was required by law to report it to the authorities. Failure to do so would result in a fine. At the same time, any sale of materials used for the purpose of contraception or promoting their usage could lead to prison sentence from 1 month and 1 day to 2 months. Sex education was also banned, with punishments attached for teaching it. The criminal code was modified in the Código Penal de 1944, with an addition of criminal punishment for third parties giving a woman an abortion without her consent or unintentionally causing an abortion when being violent towards a pregnant woman. Both offenses resulted in minor prison terms.
The Franco government found an ally in their anti-abortion beliefs and practices in the Roman Catholic Church. Those within the Catholic Church wrote in support of the law, including Father Jaime Pujiula, Professor of the Colegio Máximo de San Ignacio de Sarriá and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Madrid and the Barcelona Academy of Medicine. He stated: "The fruit that is lost criminally would perhaps be the most robust man, the healthiest, the most intelligent to contribute to society or to renew it or define new directions... It is also an attack on the population, on society, and on eugenics; not only the women having abortions, but the perverse midwives and doctors conspiring with them to perpetrate the crime for the vile spirit of profit, are responsible before God, before society, and before eugenics."Pujiula, Jaime. La Eugenesia ante la Iglesia y ante la ciencia". Revista Internacional de Sociología. Volume 11, Number 2-3, April–September 1943, pp. 113-155.
Women could, and did, go to prison for having abortions. During the 1940s in Almería, 9% of women in prison were convicted because they had abortions, had committed infanticide, or abandoned their children. This compared to 20.45% who were in prison for sexual offenses that mostly included prostitution, and 4.9% who were in prison for crimes against authority. The remaining prisoners were there for other offenses, like coercion, crimes against religion, possession of arms, or having a false identity.
As it was forbidden to discuss abortion in society, women were intentionally kept ignorant. Abortion, like women's sexuality, could only be discussed in a medical setting by male doctors. It could not be discussed in newspapers. During the 1940s in Aragon, there were almost no public references to abortion. The few references that did address it employed euphemisms. One example was in an article by Pedro Galán Bergua in Heraldo de Aragón on 1 January 1942: "The evil is not in those who marry, but in married couples who are happy to reduce their offspring and employ methods condemned by God and the country." Sources from newspapers from the 1940s controlled by the state or enjoying religious, medical, or legislative support give an impression that all women accepted the imposition of the state around the topic of abortion and the need to maintain the size of the population. Despite this, one estimate in 1943 by Matemólogo de la Sanidad Nacional Angel Clavero Núñez estimated one abortion for every three live births, concluding that 125,000 illegal abortions were performed every year. Abortions were generally only detected when a woman had a resulting health complication.
Working-class women who wanted abortions in the 1940s faced several burdens. In 1942, the average seamstress made 6.74 pesetas a day. The average female agricultural worker made 7.08 pesetas a day. This, coupled with the absence of an employed male partner, made it very difficult for them to hire midwives to help them with an abortion, as they were paid between 40 and 525 pesetas to attend births, and probably cost the same for performing abortions. Poor women with few options sometimes sought abortion by having someone hit them in the stomach. For the very desperate, they would give infants to the nuns or practice infanticide.