The Law on the Interruption of Pregnancy was a law passed by the Volkskammer, the parliament of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), on March 9, 1972, to regulate abortion. With its adoption, a fundamental revision of the law on abortion was introduced in the GDR in the form of a time limit solution, in contrast to the previously applicable indication-based regulation. This gave women the right to decide on their own responsibility whether to terminate a pregnancy within twelve weeks of its onset. According to the law, the doctor involved was obliged to advise the pregnant woman on the medical significance of the procedure and the future use of contraceptive methods and substances.
The law met with criticism and rejection from the churches of both confessions and parts of the medical community in the GDR, but there was no public debate. Until the political change in 1989, however, the resolution on the law was the only vote in the history of the Volkskammer that was not unanimous, as there were 14 votes against and eight abstentions. The legal situation created by the law in the GDR, which was the first time in German legal history that a time limit for abortion came into force, subsequently influenced the debate on the amendment of Section 218 of the German Criminal Code and the resulting legislative initiatives in the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the revision of Section 218 of the German Criminal Code following German reunification.
Origin and content
Legal development Until 1943, the legal basis for abortion in Germany was the Reich Criminal Code passed in 1871 with Sections 218–220,Quote § 218: "A woman who kills her fruit in the womb or by abortion, or allows it to be killed by another, shall be punished with imprisonment. Likewise, another person who kills a fruit in the womb or by abortion shall be punished. The attempt is punishable. Any person who commits the act referred to in subsection 2 without the consent of the pregnant woman or on a commercial basis shall be liable to imprisonment. Likewise, anyone who provides a pregnant woman with a means or an instrument for aborting the fruit on a commercial basis shall be punished. If there are mitigating circumstances, a prison sentence of not less than three months shall be imposed." According to: Walter Stoeckel: Lehrbuch der Geburtshilfe. Eighth unaltered and uncensored edition, Jena 1945. the punishment for which had been softened in a new version passed in 1926. In a ruling on March 11, 1927, the Reich Court also added a strict medical indication as an exception formulated by the judiciary to the provisions of the Criminal Code, which represented a general ban on abortion without defined indications. According to this ruling, the existence of a "present danger to the pregnant woman that could not be eliminated in any other way" was considered a justification in the form of a supra-legal state of emergency.RGSt 61, 242 - I StS 105/26 (decision of the Reichsgericht of March 11, 1927). In the Third Reich, the view on the normative basis of the ban on abortion changed fundamentally, as the killing of the expectant or unborn life was no longer the primary justification. Instead, deprivation of the father and the state and, from 1943, "impairment of the vitality of the German people" were now regarded as the basis for criminal liability.
Furthermore, with the exception of medical indications, the strict ban only applied to pregnancies that were desirable in terms of racial hygiene. In the case of parents who were considered "hereditarily ill and inferior" according to National Socialist ideology, however, eugenic indications were also permitted and even advocated.Mantei, Simone, ed. (2004). "Die Abtreibungsproblematik im Spiegel der Geschichte". Nein und Ja zur Abtreibung: Die evangelische Kirche in der Reformdebatte um § 218 StGB (1970–1976). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 30. From 1943, abortion was punishable by death if "the vitality of the German people continued to be impaired". For other cases of abortion, the prison sentence of up to 15 years was restored. However, it could only be imposed on the pregnant woman in particularly serious cases, which were not defined in the law; imprisonment remained possible against third parties in less serious cases.
After the end of the Second World War, the legal situation in the individual states of the Soviet occupation zone was replaced between 1945 and 1948 by new regulations with extended indication models. Due to the consequences of the war, these included a specific criminological indication for pregnancy after rape or sexual abuse, for example in Thuringia by the "Law on the interruption of pregnancy caused by a moral crime" of August 29, 1945, and, with the exception of the law of Saxony-Anhalt, also a social indication in the case of existing or impending social hardship, for example in Thuringia through the "Law on the interruption of pregnancy" of December 18, 1947. In Mecklenburg, the embryopathic indication was also introduced in 1947. In addition, the punishment was considerably reduced compared to the previous legal regulations.
Around a year after the GDR was founded, the Law on Mother and Child Protection and Women's Rights came into force on September 27, 1950, which introduced a uniform regulation of the indications for abortion in Section 11, which was more restrictive than the previous regulations.Bock, Jessica (November 17, 2023). Der Schwangerschaftsabbruch in der DDR. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den Fakten. In: bpb.de. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. According to Section 11, an abortion was only permitted on medical or embryopathic grounds "if carrying the child to term would seriously endanger the life or health of the pregnant woman or if one of the parents was afflicted with a serious hereditary disease" and permission had been granted by a commission made up of doctors, representatives of health care bodies and the Democratic Women's Association. In addition to promoting equal rights for women and increasing their employment, the aim of the Law on Mother and Child Protection and Women's Rights was in particular to promote births as part of population policy.Schwartz, Michael (2008). "»Liberaler als bei uns?« Zwei Fristenregelungen und die Folgen. Reformen des Abtreibungsstrafrechts in Deutschland". In Wengst, Udo; Wentker, Hermann (eds.). Das doppelte Deutschland: 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz. Schriftenreihe der Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. Vol. 720. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. p. 192. . In the following years, the legal situation in the GDR from 1950 onwards led to one of the lowest rates of approved abortions in the world on the one hand, and on the other to an increase in the number of illegal abortions and to women turning to doctors in West Berlin for abortions until the construction of the Berlin Wall.Hoffmann, Dierk; Schwartz, Michael (2005). Sozialstaatlichkeit in der DDR: Sozialpolitische Entwicklungen im Spannungsfeld von Diktatur und Gesellschaft 1945/49–1989. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. p. 74. .
In March 1965, an internal circular of the Ministry of Health, without changing the text of the law, extended the application of Section 11 to include a criminal and a social indication. The other cases of abortion remained prohibited and punishable, and the criminal provisions of the state laws initially continued to apply and were replaced in 1968 by Sections 153-155 of the GDR Criminal Code.
With the 1972 law on the interruption of pregnancy, the indication-based legal situation was then completely replaced by a time limit regulation. Even after the law was passed and promulgated in the GDR Law Gazette on March 15, 1972,GBl. I, 5/1972, pp. 89/90. Sections 153-155 of the GDR Criminal Code remained in full force and unchanged, as an interruption of pregnancy was considered illegal under criminal law if it was performed "contrary to the statutory provisions". In contrast to Section 218 of the German Criminal Code, the specific definition of the requirements for permissibility was therefore not part of the provisions of the StGB-GDR, but was instead set out in the corresponding laws of 1950 and 1972. The main reasons for the new regulation in 1972, as with the extension of the indications in 1965, were the high number of unreported illegal abortions, the increasing demands for women's self-determination as well as the rejuvenation and increase in the proportion of women among doctors in the GDR.Schwartz, Michael (2008). "»Liberaler als bei uns?« Zwei Fristenregelungen und die Folgen. Reformen des Abtreibungsstrafrechts in Deutschland". In Wengst, Udo; Wentker, Hermann (eds.). Das doppelte Deutschland: 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz. Schriftenreihe der Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. Vol. 720. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. p. 197 . In addition, a "race" with the reform efforts of the social-liberal coalition in the Federal Republic of Germany may have played a role in the timing.Schwartz, Michael (2008). "»Liberaler als bei uns?« Zwei Fristenregelungen und die Folgen. Reformen des Abtreibungsstrafrechts in Deutschland". In Wengst, Udo; Wentker, Hermann (eds.). Das doppelte Deutschland: 40 Jahre Systemkonkurrenz. Schriftenreihe der Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. Vol. 720. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. p. 196. . Both in the context of legal history and in an international comparison, the recognition of the decision to terminate a pregnancy as a woman's right was particularly new; a comparable formulation can only be found in the regulation adopted in Denmark one year later.
With the Unification Treaty of August 31, 1990, § 1 para. 1, § 4 para. 2 and § 5 of the Act on the Termination of Pregnancy were repealed.
The Act ceased to apply in full in 1993 following the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court to reorganize the legal situation on abortion throughout Germany.
According to the preamble of the law on the interruption of pregnancy, which consisted of five paragraphs, the possibility of deciding on pregnancy and carrying it to term was regarded as a requirement of the "equal rights of women in education and work, marriage and family" and thus as a contribution to achieving this goal within the framework of the women's and family policy of the GDR. According to Section 1 (1), women were therefore given "in addition to the existing contraceptive options, the right to decide on the interruption of a pregnancy on their own responsibility" in order to determine the number, the time and the chronological order of births.
According to Section 1 (2), a pregnant woman was entitled to have the pregnancy terminated within twelve weeks of its onset "by means of a medical intervention in an obstetric-gynecological facility". According to Section 1 (3), the doctor involved was obliged to "inform the woman of the medical significance of the procedure and advise her on the future use of contraceptive methods and means".
According to Section 2, the termination of a pregnancy of more than twelve weeks was subject to the decision of a commission of medical specialists and was only permitted if the woman's life was at risk or if there were other serious circumstances.
According to Section 3 (1), abortion was not permitted if the woman was suffering from an illness that could lead to serious health-threatening or life-threatening complications.
According to Section 3(2), abortion was inadmissible if the last abortion had taken place less than six months previously, unless the Medical Specialists Commission granted an exemption.
According to Section 4 (1), the preparation, execution and follow-up treatment of a permissible abortion were "treated in the same way as a case of illness in terms of employment and insurance law".