Macedonia to Revise Restrictive Abortion Law

The Macedonian health ministry is working to redraw the divisive Law on Abortion and will soon submit its proposals to parliament, recently-appointed Health Minister Venko Filipce told media on Wednesday.

"All the laws and procedures [intended for] the improvement of the protection of women's health remain our priority. We are almost finished with the revision of the Law on Abortion and it will soon put it into a regular procedure [for adoption by parliament," Filipce said.

He did not specify whether the changes will alter some of the most disputed provisions, regarding the obligatory counselling for women who wish to undergo an abortion, but insisted that the public wait for the new draft to be completed.

The law, which was adopted in 2013 on the initiative of the then ruling conservative VMRO DPMNE party - despite street protests by human rights activists - did not completely ban abortion in Macedonia.

But it made the procedure harder by introducing, among other things, a mandatory written request for an abortion, which could be rejected, as well as a three-day period in which the woman requesting the procedure should re-examine whether she really wants an abortion or not.

Many activists and doctors insisted however that these procedures only complicated the process and traumatised women.

The previous government also launched a campaign called 'Choose Life' in order to promote the abortion curbs.

With the election of the new Social Democrats-led government last May, activists raised their hopes that the curbs would be scrapped. 

A coalition of rights NGOs, the Platform for Gender Equality, also urged the new administration in October last year to allocate more money for sexual...