Last October, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez announced that he would reform the Constitution to protect the right to abortion. This Tuesday, the Spanish government has taken a significant step in this direction, as it has approved the draft reform of Article 43 of the Magna Carta, after the green light from the Council of State, with the intention of "constitutionalizing the right to interrupt pregnancy" in its service-provision aspect. That is, not in the abstract sphere of the right, but in its practical sense. However, the eventual reform still has a long parliamentary path ahead, even if it reaches its destination: it must gather three-fifths of the Congress and the Senate, a majority that is currently difficult to achieve because the PP's concurrence is necessary. "We will seek the greatest possible consensus," asserted the Spanish government, adding that there is a "large majority" of citizens who support the right to abortion.

In October last year, the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, The person in charge of explaining it has been the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, who considers that currently the "effective" exercise of the right to abortion is "at risk" in the State. She said this with data in hand: she assured that only 20% of abortions in Spain are performed in public healthcare, while the right is also not guaranteed in the same way throughout the territory. For example, she said that more than 50% of cases in Galicia, Cantabria, or Catalonia are performed in public healthcare, but only 1% of cases in the Community of Madrid and Andalusia are performed in this area. That is, the majority of abortions are performed by private healthcare, and this is what the Spanish government wants to avoid.

Every time someone enters, the door lets in a blast of cold air. The greeting is instantaneous, familiar. For a moment, it interrupts the noise of the coffee maker and the clinking of spoons. A few children's shouts, equally unpredictable, also break the silence. It's early enough for a Saturday.

The fifty years of the Spanish monarchy holding the head of state have fractured the right-wing bloc. The event, intended to commemorate the half-century of the Bourbons' rule since the death of Francisco Franco, will be boycotted by the far-right Vox party. Santiago Abascal's party announced on Tuesday that it will not participate and will once again snub King Felipe VI. "We are not going to participate in the farce that the government has prepared, which is an ode to Sánchez's totalitarian regime," stated Vox spokesperson in the lower house, Pepa Millán, who avoided commenting on the dictator. In her opinion, this event and the rest of those scheduled for this 50th anniversary of Franco's death are not "a tribute to democracy, the Transition, or the rule of law." In fact, the far-right party made it clear in mid-October that it would not participate in any event with the Spanish government where it could not denounce its alleged "criminal and corrupt actions." Aside from Vox's boycott, the absence of Sumar, Podemos, ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, the PNV, and also the BNG and Coalición Canaria will be repeated. Therefore, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the monarchy in Congress will be incomplete: initially, only the PSOE and PP will attend, while the rest of the parliamentary spectrum will be absent.

Abortion, 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.

The Minister of Health, Mónica García, has announced that she will take the Community of Madrid to court after it failed to create the registry of conscientious objectors mandated by the abortion law. For the head of the Health Ministry, this constitutes "a rebellion against the law, democracy, and women." In this regard, García asked, "What's wrong with" Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid, "with women?" She made the announcement after participating in an event organized by Más Madrid, alongside the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, where they confirmed that Madrid is the only autonomous community that has not yet created the registry. This announcement was reaffirmed on Monday by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who stated that the Spanish government... will request the State Attorney's Office "To file an administrative appeal with the High Court of Justice of Madrid" to "defend the rights of the women of Madrid."

Gómez Pereira, Spanish doctor and humanist, developed in the pages of his Antoniana Margarita (1554) a paradoxical thesis. First, he assures us that animals are merely soulless automatons, made of flesh, blood, and bones, incapable of reasoning before acting, and who behave like a magnet and iron, following inevitable physical laws. But then he takes a turn and tells us that if animals could feel, "we would have to admit that men act in an inhuman, violent, and cruel manner. For what is more atrocious than beasts of burden carrying considerable weight on long journeys?" And what should we say about the spectacle of bullfighting, where the cattle seem to beg "for freedom with pleading lowing"? Only if animals cannot feel can we sleep morally sound.

These have been, for days, the two major topics of discussion in a not-so-distant galaxy called Madrid. At first glance, it may seem like a return to the times of the Transition and the films of the uncover, guy Gee with the divorceBut beyond the picturesque, in the background of these capital fights there is a regression in terms of fundamental rights and the very conception of society that affects us all.

After noting the reluctance of some regions governed by the People's Party (PP), such as Madrid, to guarantee the right to abortion for women who request it, Pedro Sánchez announced that he would incorporate this right into the Constitution to "protect" it. The Spanish government's path is to reform article 43 of the Magna Carta for its incorporation: "The right of women to voluntary termination of pregnancy is guaranteed. The exercise of this right, in all cases, will be guaranteed by the public authorities, ensuring its provision under conditions of effective equality, as well as the protection of women's fundamental rights." Now, does this path really protect that right? In recent hours, various voices from the legal world have questioned it.

How can we combat the global climate of regression in terms of rights and freedoms? Advances achieved over decades are at risk from the offensive of a reactionary populism that increasingly dictates the agenda and public debates. We are seeing this in Trump's United States and throughout Europe. Catalonia and Spain are no exception. It is in this context that the Spanish government's intention to protect the right to abortion within the Constitution must be understood. But is this a genuine movement or a maneuver to seek a clash with the right? Former minister Irene Montero (Podemos) has been quick to denounce the alleged maneuver by the PSOE to use women's rights for a purely partisan self-interest operation.

The same week that the mammogram scandal in Andalusia escalated to the point of causing a crisis in Moreno Bonilla's government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso opened another confrontation with Alberto Núñez Feijóo, inviting the left to "go get an abortion somewhere else," that is, outside of Madrid. Ayuso's words, in language very similar to that of anti-abortion Catholic groups, have been surprising because they represent a change in the discourse of the Madrid president, who until now aligned herself with the party's more liberal theses and even distanced herself when she defended the right to abortion for minors. Her pronouncement forced Feijóo to issue a statement clarifying the party's position, which is to guarantee the right to abortion in accordance with the law.

After the controversy over abortion in the Madrid City Council, due to the approval with the votes of José Luis Martínez-Almeida's PP of an initiative by Vox for force women to be informed about a false "postural trauma"Isabel Díaz Ayuso joined the public attacks on this right this Thursday. The Madrid president rejected creating a "blacklist of doctors" who refuse to perform abortions, thus declaring herself in rebellion against the ultimatum the Spanish government has given the Community of Madrid to comply with state law and create a registry of conscientious objectors within three months, to which all the rulings have already been issued. "Go get an abortion somewhere else," Ayuso told Más Madrid in the regional assembly's control session. Given the uproar this statement generated, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was forced to react a few hours later and clarify Ayuso's position: the PP, he said, "guarantees" the right to abortion.

Pedro Sánchez's response to The ultraconservative offensive of the PP and Vox against social and reproductive rights of women. The Spanish government announced this Friday that it will push for a constitutional reform to include the right to abortion in the Constitution, a measure with which the executive branch hopes to combat "any attempt at a rollback that threatens women's rights." This is a long-standing demand by feminist and left-wing groups to prevent changes in government and parliamentary majorities from curtailing rights, as unsuccessfully attempted by the PP's Minister of Justice, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, who, following strong social protests, withdrew the proposal and resigned in 2014. Adding abortion to the Constitution would make Spain the second country in the world to take this step, after France. "In a global context of an offensive against sexual and reproductive rights, Spain takes another step toward enshrining the freedom and autonomy of women to decide about their lives," the same sources add. The initiative entails a change to Article 43 of the constitutional text, which is not easy because it requires a qualified majority of three-fifths of both Congress and the Senate, meaning the support of the PP is needed.

It has not taken the Madrid PP 24 hours to rectify and admit that the alleged post-abortion syndrome It lacks scientific consistency. The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, a member of the Popular Party (PP), stated this Thursday that women will not be "forced" to receive "any type of information" about "postural trauma" because, indeed, "it is not a recognized scientific category," as feminist organizations and medical societies have warned.

Under the pretext of providing more support to women seeking abortions, Madrid City Council will require health and social services professionals to provide information about a supposed "postural trauma" that has no scientific validity and is based on a proposal by Vox, with the support of the PP municipal group. The initiative, which was also endorsed by the leadership of the Popular Party (PP) on Wednesday, is in line with the agenda of the most ultra-conservative international groups. reduce women's sexual and reproductive rights, such as, for example, the failed attempt to Castile and León to make women hear the fetal heartbeat before undergoing an abortion.

In 2014, a young woman arrived at a hospital in Tucumán (a conservative province in northern Argentina) with intense abdominal pain and blood loss: she had suffered a miscarriage. Police found a fetus in one of the hospital bathrooms and, without evidence or analysis, charged her with homicide and imprisoned her. Nativity scene, which was presented this Tuesday at the San Sebastian Film Festival, recreates the struggle to free this woman, a victim of a patriarchal society and a corrupt judicial system that agreed to impose an exemplary punishment on her.

Despite its proud belonging to what we usually identify as hard-line auteur cinema (long fixed shots, respect for real time, poetic images, serious tone of speech, tendency towards a certain crypticism...), at certain moments ofApril There are connections to other film genres. In fact, this story about a gynecologist in crisis and under suspicion in Georgia begins as a horror film: the mysterious presence of a ghostly figure functions as an allegory for the fear of the body; perhaps about decisions about one's own body seen as monstrous by certain outside eyes.

The Health Commission was heated this Thursday in the Catalan Parliament. The Catalan parliament has summoned Health Minister Olga Pané to explain the current status of access to abortion in Catalonia and to assess the handling of the flu epidemic last winter. Pané presented the data, and during question time, Vox MP María Elisa García Fuster harshly criticized the right of pregnant women to terminate their pregnancies if they so wish, citing implausible arguments. "I come from hospitals where I've seen women having abortions. I've seen how the baby runs away and how it tries to defend itself and puts its hands out to try to stop the needle from sticking in," she stated during her speech.

With the far right gaining ground in parliaments and governments and women's rights threatened around the world, we spoke to four women who are fighting against this regression of rights in four areas: sexual and reproductive rights, labour rights, the rise of sexism among young people and new forms of hatred. Feminism and feminists as a dam against anti-rights discourse.