A majority of the Senate seems to agree with the proposal by GroenLinks, D66, PvdA and VVD to also give GPs the opportunity to prescribe the abortion pill.
If the Senate approves it next week, it will be the second major amendment to the Abortion Act in a year. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives and the Senate already agreed to abolish the statutory cooling-off period of five days, an obligation that many parties see as patronizing and will disappear on 1 January.
The interests and freedom of choice of women are also central to the proposal on the abortion pill. The four parties want to make abortion care more accessible and give women the option to also get the abortion pill from their GP. Now every woman is still obliged to go to an abortion clinic or hospital. The abortion pill is an alternative to curettage up to nine weeks of pregnancy, i.e. suction of the fetus.
The bill is controversial within abortion care. Abortion doctors fear “fragmentation” of abortion care if general practitioners are also allowed to prescribe the pill. They doubt whether GPs have enough expertise and abortion clinics fear the financial consequences if part of their treatments disappears to the GP.
‘Redundant’
38 seats are needed for a majority in the Senate; the four parties that have submitted the proposal together already have 33. Within the VVD parliamentary group – now the largest party in the senate with twelve seats – voting on medical-ethical issues is sometimes divided, but senator Reina de Bruijn-Wezeman has at NRC know that her group can agree unanimously. In the debate, De Bruijn-Wezeman said that it is “an unnecessary extra step” for women that they now have to go to a clinic for the abortion pill.
To secure a majority, the four parties need the support of, for example, the CDA (nine seats) or the SP and the Party for the Animals (together seven seats). SP senator Arda Gerkens spoke on behalf of both left-wing parties and immediately said that this proposal “could make a difference for many women”. It is therefore expected that both parties can agree.
Read more about this topic: Abortion pill via the GP: good plan or not?
The CDA also has “a positive basic attitude”, said Senator Greet Prins before the debate. The party still has a number of critical questions, for example whether the proposal really improves women’s freedom of choice now that GPs are not obliged to prescribe the abortion pill. “Women’s autonomy becomes completely dependent on the GP. How do women know which choice their GP has made?”
The ChristenUnie and the SGP were outspokenly critical. CU senator Maarten Verkerk sees the proposal as “a disruption of the balance” between the woman’s right to self-determination and the protection of unborn life. Verkerk sees above all that the process of abortion “should be easier”. The SGP also fears that abortion will be “normalized even further”. In other countries where the abortion pill was already available through GPs, such as France and Sweden, the number of abortions has not increased.
Voluntarily
In a response, the initiators said that, just like abortion doctors, GPs must test in the clinic whether the abortion wish of women is voluntary and well-considered. In order to be able to conduct such a conversation properly, GPs receive compulsory further training. Member of Parliament Corinne Ellemeet (GroenLinks) thinks that it is precisely a GP who can conduct such a conversation very well. “The GP often knows the patient, the social context and her medical history.”
PvdA member Attje Kuiken rightly called questions about the financial consequences for abortion clinics, but pointed out that Minister Ernst Kuipers (Public Health, D66) has already promised to monitor them. In the debate, Kuipers did not want to ensure the continued existence of every abortion clinic, but he did “guarantee a good nationwide network”. Kuiken thinks that a shift of treatments from the clinics to the general practitioner will proceed ‘slowly’. “The clinics will not just fall over.”