In the summer of 2021, as a legal historian, I was invited by a radio program of the Evangelische Omroep. To talk about the controversial abortion ban that Texas tried to introduce (where Uber drivers, among others, would be complicit when they drove pregnant women to a clinic). After an hour of reading and texting back and forth with the EO editor, it became clear what they had in mind. No analysis of the situation judicial developments in Texas, but discussion. I would be ‘pro-abortion’, and a female SGP was against it. “We like to hear the two sides to this story,” the editor anointed. There were ten minutes for the item. Subtract the introduction and two audio clips from that, and what you’re left with is six minutes before the question: should aborting a fetus continue to be legalized and facilitated by the state? I thanked you for the honor.
In 2020, the subject of abortion was discussed on the talk show De Vooravond. Rebecca Gomperts was a guest. After briefly celebrating that Gomperts by Time Magazine was put on the list of most influential people in the world, presenter Renze Klamer stated that he regretted that conversations about abortion are always conducted ‘in the extreme’. On the one hand, the fierce wing of the anti-abortion lobby that threw plastic fetuses through letterboxes, and on the other, so-called extreme: ‘boss in your own belly’. Shortly afterwards, his colleague Fidan Ekiz described with astonishment the “celebratory mood surrounding it,” referring to abortion. In the words of NRC television critic Arjen Fortuin, “a ‘but’ suddenly appeared on the subject of abortion”.
However, the ‘but’ is still very much in the minority. Research shows that a robust three quarters of the Dutch population is in favor of the right to abortion. Only ten percent are convinced against. Partly because of this, the chance that the Netherlands will abolish legal abortion is very small. Unlike the United States or Poland, abolition here would not depend on the whims of nine judges, whether conservative or not – we don’t have a Supreme Court that checks and adjusts our fundamental rights – here abolition would go through the Senate and House of Representatives. And as long as there is no broad support among the population, abortion will not simply be abolished.
Now I’ve been working on a book on abortion law for the past few months. It’s not up for debate here like it’s up for debate in the US. That does not mean that there are no relevant issues surrounding abortion care. For example, offering access to an abortion procedure turned out to be not a priority during the pandemic – it was not possible to receive an abortion pill for vulnerable people or pregnant women with covid symptoms. Also, abortion is not reimbursed for everyone: clinics can decide for themselves whether and how much discount they give to people who are not insured under the Long-term Care Act, like undocumented pregnant women† In addition, bizarrely enough, abortion is still in the criminal code, which means that it does not have the same legal status as a regular medical procedure.
I understand that there was alarm this week about the most likely imminent abolition of federal abortion law in the US. But too often, the Dutch media want to put us in a bind, with a pro-or-against treatment of the issue that is not discussed here. There’s plenty to talk about on abortion without the media having to succumb to the equally gassy, if easy-going comparison with the situation in the United States.
Madeleijn van den Nieuwenhuizen writes a column on this site every other week.