Swiss Sexual Health (SSCH) organized a demonstration Thursday, at the beginning of the afternoon, on the Federal Square in Bern. The objective was to mark the 20th anniversary of the vote on the delay regime for abortions (decriminalization up to 12 weeks, with exceptions), accepted at 72.2%. The idea was also to make a new political proposal. The president of the SSCH, also a national councillor, Léonore Porchet (Les Verts/VD), tabled a parliamentary initiative for “the removal of abortion from the Penal Code”.

“We call on Switzerland to consider abortion above all as a health issue. In a modern society, it no longer has a place in the Penal Code, ”explains the elected official in a press release. According to the SSCH, despite the 2002 vote, “barriers and discrimination remain, whether at the financial level, or at the level of access to services and to sufficient and clear information (…) Moreover, the interruption of pregnancy remains part of the Penal Code, despite its status as a medical service that is part of the basic catalog of health insurance. As a result, his stigma and moral condemnation endures.”

Babies “crushed, torn” according to opponents

The Save Viable Babies initiative committee reacted to the SSCH proposal on Thursday. He believes in a press release that wanting to remove abortion from the Penal Code, “is to ignore the human dignity of unborn children”. Opponents say that if this repeal were accepted, it “would be immediately followed by a referendum, and it would even be possible to launch a heartbeat initiative according to the Texas model”.

The committee writes that, if the voluntary termination of pregnancy were to disappear from the Penal Code, babies “could then, for any reason, be pierced, aspirated, crushed, quartered, cut into pieces or put to death by any other way, until the moment of their birth in the 40th week”.