Sánchez-Ayuso clash over abortion after the Spanish government sends Madrid to court

BarcelonaAbortion, Francisco Franco, and Palestine are wild cards that Pedro Sánchez uses recurrently uses to mobilize his electorate and fracture the right, pushing it into arenas where the left is comfortable. Although those in the People's Party, as well as in Vox, are aware of this strategy of the Spanish president, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, does not shy away from these issues and continues her crusade on abortion. Her refusal to create an internal—not public—registry of conscientious objectors to performing abortions has already led to... the warning this weekend from the Ministry of Health under Mónica García They would go to court, as confirmed this Monday by the Spanish Prime Minister himself, Pedro Sánchez: the national government will take the Community of Madrid to court for refusing to create the register of conscientious objectors. In a message on the social network X, Sánchez indicated that the executive branch will request this Monday that the State Attorney's Office file an administrative appeal before the High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM): "We will defend the rights of the women of Madrid in the courts." The response from the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was swift, and she labeled Sánchez a "dictator." "We will defend the right of professionals to conscientious objection. Only a dictator can force them to do what they don't want to do," she wrote in a message to X.

Sánchez also denounced the fact that the Community of Madrid currently refers more than 99% of voluntary terminations of pregnancy to private clinics. "An essential right turned into a business. We will not allow it," Sánchez said. "And the PSOE of Castilla-La Mancha referred 2,000 abortions to Madrid last year," Ayuso retorted in the same message responding to X. Later, Ayuso doubled down in statements to the media: "What I want is for a court to decide, not such a sectarian government that drafts the laws," at the Melilla Forum. "And what about the freedom of healthcare professionals who want to practice or who don't? With sectarian laws, we can only find sectarian responses like yours, like dictators who don't respect and violate basic rights such as freedom of conscience," she insisted.

The Spanish president's announcement comes after the Ministry of Health sent a formal request a few weeks ago to Aragon, the Balearic Islands, and the Community of Madrid, reminding them of the requirement to create a regional registry of conscientious objectors to abortion. The first two regions complied, but the Community of Madrid, led by Ayuso, did not. It is not new that Sánchez has clung to abortion as one of the key issues on his legislative agenda, which is currently stalled due to a lack of support in Congress. Specifically, this past autumn he already advocated reforming the Spanish Constitution to enshrine the right to abortion, which, according to him, would be jeopardized if the right wing were to govern. However, several legal experts warned that incorporating this right into the Constitution as proposed by the Spanish government would not truly guarantee it.

In any case, with this move, Sánchez attempted to force a stance from the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who distanced himself from Ayuso's strategy by defending the right to abortion: "I will always guarantee that any woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy can do so with the best medical care," he told X. This message made the internal division on this issue clear. Feijóo argued that Sánchez chooses to "use outdated causes and moral banners to divide society." However, Feijóo has opposed including the right to abortion in the Constitution because he does not believe it is a "fundamental right." This is yet another example of the give-and-take between Feijóo's pragmatic wing and the hardline stance embodied by Ayuso. The Madrid president has not only made her position clear on a sensitive issue like abortion, but also on Palestine, denying the Israeli genocide and opting for Zionism. But Ayuso's approach is not without consequences due to the evident clash of strategies with that of Feijóo, who tends to avoid these issues favored by Sánchez. Within the party, this has also caused internal unease, with several voices considering it a "stumbling block" to the Galician leader's strategy and a way to support Sánchez's, according to them.

In any case, the Spanish government insists in a statement that the conscientious objector registry is a tool for public hospitals to organize services and guarantee access to this right without systematically referring women to private centers. Furthermore, it reiterates that the data in the conscientious objector registry is confidential and in no case publicly accessible. "The Spanish government will continue to use all means at its disposal, including recourse to the courts, to ensure that the autonomous communities comply with the law, to guarantee that women who wish to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy can do so with all guarantees within the public healthcare system," it maintains.