In order to keep abortion opponents away from counseling centers and clinics, the Federal Council has passed a new pregnancy conflict law. But Pro Familia in Frankfurt has doubts.
It is now almost a familiar sight in Frankfurt’s Westend: a small group of women and men murmuring quietly to themselves about 20 meters away from the entrance to the Pro Familia advice center in Frankfurt. In their hands are rosaries and cardboard signs with inscriptions like: “Abortion is not a solution.”
For almost seven years, the activists of the “40 Days for Life” initiative have been holding 40-day “prayer vigils” in front of the advice center twice a year. Attempts by the city to move the event out of sight of the facility were declared inadmissible by the administrative courts.
But a new version of the Pregnancy Conflict Act should now make this possible. On Friday, the Federal Council cleared the way for this.
Direct contact prohibited
The law provides for the establishment of a type of protection zone around pregnancy counseling centers and clinics that perform abortions. The traffic light coalition had initiated it, now the state chamber has waved it through.
Within a radius of 100 meters, it is therefore forbidden to make it difficult for pregnant women to enter the facility, to speak to them against their will or to provide them with content that contains false information on the subject of pregnancy and abortion or is likely to “severely confuse or greatly alarm them.” “.
The head of the women’s department speaks of success
Frankfurt’s head of the environment, climate and women, Tina Zapf-Rodríguez (Greens), sees the change in the law as an “initial success”. It is “absolutely important that unintentionally pregnant women have safe and legal access to abortions and also to pregnancy conflict counseling,” said Zapf-Rodríguez.
However, in Frankfurt you would have to check to what extent the 100 meter minimum distance is sufficient. Zapf-Rodríguez refers to the local conditions. The Pro Familia advice center is at the end of a dead end. Women may still be forced to walk past the vigil.
Public order office: implement the law “as soon as possible”
The Frankfurt regulatory department, headed by Annette Rinn (FDP), is currently preparing for the practical implementation of the new law. “We will implement this as soon as possible,” explains department spokesman Stefan von Wangenheim in an interview with hr.
However, the law must first be published in the Federal Law Gazette and an implementing regulation must be issued. It is therefore assumed that the current 40-day vigil, which began last Wednesday, cannot yet be postponed.
Vigils win in court
With the change in the law, federal politics is reacting to the conflict that has been going on for years between the organizers of the vigils and the affected municipalities such as Frankfurt or Pforzheim (Baden-Württemberg). Both cities initially tried on their own to move the vigils away from the immediate vicinity of advice centers.
The representatives of the “40 Days for Life” initiative successfully sued against this on several occasions. Most recently, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled in favor of them in May 2023.
Abortion opponents have been holding their vigil again since Wednesday – even in heavy rain. Image © hr/Frank Angermund
Skepsis bei Pro Familia
At Pro Familia in Frankfurt, people are skeptical as to whether the change in the law will really achieve the desired goal. In principle, it is very welcome that the legislature has taken on the problem, emphasizes Claudia Hohmann, authorized representative of the advice center in Frankfurt: “But the way the law is written, we fear that it is not enough to get the vigils away from the advice centers .”
In fact, the law does not contain a blanket ban on vigils or demonstrations in the vicinity of advice centers and clinics. Instead, it lists a whole series of actions that should be avoided – such as speaking against the apparent will of those seeking advice or making access more difficult.
The problem is that a large part of this does not apply to the Frankfurt vigil or no longer applies. After the abortion opponents stood right at the entrance to Pro Familia in 2017, they are now keeping their distance. It is doubtful whether they can still influence the “immediate perception” of those seeking advice, as required by the law.
AfD invited the initiator as an expert to the Bundestag
“Our fear is that a lawsuit will be filed against the transfer and the other side will be right,” says Claudia Hohmann. It is anything but unlikely that this will happen. The initiator of the Frankfurt vigil is the lawyer Tomislav Čunović, who has already successfully sued against the relocations in Frankfurt and Pforzheim.
Čunović has now been promoted to “Managing Director for International Affairs” of the global organization “40 Days for Life”. In May of this year, at the invitation of the AfD, he was heard in the Bundestag as an “expert” on changing the Pregnancy Conflict Act.
Here he was already of the opinion that the law was unconstitutional. This follows from the case law of the Federal Administrative Court, among others, said Čunović. The law will not stand in German courts.
Lawsuit not unlikely
Čunović declined to comment on the change in the law to the hr. The vigil initiator also left unanswered the question of whether he planned to take legal action against it.
Meanwhile, Frankfurt’s head of the women’s department, Zapf-Rodríguez, is combative: “It’s very clear to us: it has to be about the personal rights of women who become pregnant unintentionally. That’s why I wouldn’t shy away from seeking legal action again.”
