President Ivan Gašparovič on August 25 signed an amendment to the Abortion Act according to which women will be given two days to consider whether to go ahead with an abortion following a consultation.
The amendment was drafted by Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) MP Ľudmila Mušková and Slovak National Party (SNS) MP Štefan Zelník. It was approved by parliament in April this year and will come into effect in September.
Its proponents said the two-day period is designed to provide women with time to decide freely about an abortion after a professional consultation. According to Mušková, the amendment extends the qualified advice provided by doctors, who are obliged to inform women of the alternatives to abortion. "A woman has the right to choose from several alternatives and shouldn't find herself in a situation in which she feels that she doesn't have her life in her own hands and there is no other solution [than abortion]," Mušková said in parliament, in support of the proposal, stressing that the new measure is designed to offer information in favour of an unborn baby's life.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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