The Nazi Law Being Weaponized By Far-Right Extremists
Abortion rights are now under threat in Germany by the same far-right forces that have laid siege to them in the US, thanks to a Nazi law that has recently been exhumed.
For many American expats in Europe, restrictive abortion laws seem like one of those barbarities — like a lack of gun control or socialized medicine — particular to the United States in the developed West, that we have left behind. It is one of those issues that has allowed us in the UK (where abortion is freely available on the NHS for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy) to, throughout the Brexit debacle, look at the news coming out of the US and remind ourselves that things could be worse.
Only occasionally is this smug satisfaction with ourselves pierced by the reality of the situation, such as when Northern Ireland finally decriminalized abortion only last year, or when thousands took to the streets in Poland in 2018 to protest proposed further restrictions to abortion.
It came as a shock to me, then, when I learned about the state of abortion law in Germany, liberal Germany — lynchpin of the European project — with its far more permissive attitudes towards sex than us repressed Brits. Abortion rights are now under threat…
