A parliamentary group of SPD politicians is campaigning for the Bundestag to legalise abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy but beyond the existing, tolerated 12-week cut-off.

SPD parliamentary group push for abortion legalisation

A group of SPD politicians in the German Bundestag are campaigning for the coalition government, which the party runs alongside the Greens and FDP, to legalise abortion.

"We want to strengthen women's right to self-determination and lay down different regulations for pregnancy termination which are outside of the penal code," faction member Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens) explained.

Currently, abortion is illegal in Germany except for in specific circumstances; if it can be proven that carrying to term would be life-threatening for the pregnant person or if the pregnancy is a result of rape. Anyone in Germany who meets these criteria must undergo compulsory counselling with a state-recognised body. Once these boxes have been ticked an abortion can be carried out legally, but only within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

However, if abortion-seekers do not meet these requirements, a termination is tolerated - but not technically legal - following counselling consultation and before the 12th week of pregnancy. According to pro familia, 96,4 percent of abortions in Germany are carried out according to these regulations.

The parliamentary group campaign launch comes after an SPD-appointed expert panel concluded in May that Germany should bring its abortion law in line with international standards. While few people are currently penalised, the commission concluded that since the strict law remains in the penal code, a government could easily instigate punishments should it decide to.

How does Germany’s abortion law compare to other EU countries?

The parliamentary group has yet to announce until which week of pregnancy it believes abortion should be legal in Germany. 

In its 600-page report, the expert commission suggested that abortion be legal at least within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and that the government examine whether a new law should make abortion legal in the first 22 weeks of pregnancy, since it is after 22 weeks that a foetus can survive outside of the womb. They concluded that abortion should be forbidden, but not criminalised, in the following weeks of pregnancy.

If these suggestions became legislation, Germany would have a later term limit than most countries in Europe, but still behind the UK, where a termination is generally permitted during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. In France, which recently enshrined abortion as a constitutional right, termination is allowed until the 14th week of pregnancy, and in Italy, until the 12th week - though access to termination is becoming harder since Georgia Meloni’s national-conservative Brothers of Italy party took office in 2022.

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