Spain's proposed abortion law, a step backwards?

If you've ever been to school, you've probably discussed the issue of abortion. Ideal debate fodder for RE and Citizenship lessons, your knowledge of the wealth of pro/con arguments about any controversial topic gets multiplied when you study languages. Want to know why I'm against capital punishment, in French? Let's do it. My opinion on legalising Class A drugs, in Italian? I'll have a go. There are only so many oral exams you can endure before you're arguing with your Spanish teacher about why AQA should accept 'Aniston vs. Jolie' as your submitted debate topic (I was prevented from actually testing this one out. It was 2008: these wounds take time to heal).

Pro-life or pro-choice (and it will become clear that I am, unsurprisingly, very firmly pro-choice), most people are familiar with the common arguments on both sides. Living in Madrid this year has brought with it a new wave of protests: 2011/2012 was dominated by educational cuts and reforms; this time round it's a controversial bill that will ban abortion except in cases of rape or when the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother's health.

When you live in the centre of a capital city where every other week a new mass demonstration is to be beheld, where evidence of the economic crisis is everywhere from beggars' placards to bank-window graffiti to meal deals in restaurants, it's easy to roll your eyes and ignore it when you see a few thousand people marching by. This Saturday as I tried (for ten minutes) to strategically cross Gran Via to get past hundreds of chanting women to go the gym, I found a bit of an anger building inside me, and not just frustration at not being able to cross the road (it's fate telling me not to go to the gym, and I should really listen). I didn't think my views on abortion were particularly strong but I suddenly felt real empathy for these people who now face having freedoms that they, I, most women, at least in Western European countries, take for granted.

I have never considered that it would be possible for developed countries to revert to imposing more socially conservative laws, particularly in Spain where the standard mindset seems to be super liberal, surely to distance itself from its repressive past: the Francoist dictatorship (which ended in 1975) still relatively fresh in the memory of most of the country's older generation. Any Almodóvar film will tell you that Spain's cultural makeup is far more accepting and diverse than it once was. Spain's left and right are divided in a different way to the more class-based division in Britain, and at least where I work and with most people I meet, the 'centre' seems to be very much to the left of the spectrum - something which at times, even I find frustrating. The concept of a uniform in a state school has been met with horror, as if it's some declaration of support for the former fascist regime. No: it's just orderly! This makes the proposed changes to the law all the more shocking.

Pro-choice graffiti in Tirso de Molina

Of course, the bill has its supporters. After all, the governing Partido Popular, Spain's major Conservative party, is ruling for a reason. Like anywhere, political allegiances depend largely on location and income. In Britain, however, most Conservatives I know would still consider restrictions on abortion a major infringement: it's an issue that lies beyond the political sphere. It's a religious sore point, and Spain is still a Catholic country.

Is this bill a way for the Spanish government to appease the Church, whom it shares close links with? Or even a distraction from the deeply entrenched economic problems the country continues to suffer? The worry seems to be that Rajoy's government will take further steps in this direction, that 39 years of progress since the fascist era have meant nothing.

Spanish culture and history since the start of the Civil War (1936-9) continue to fascinate me, this proposed law and the reactions that it has brought with it -'My ovaries, not those of priests or politicians' - seem to expose a society that remains fragmented in the face of many issues, and that some might argue is still recovering from its difficult past. I can only hope that feminism wins this particular battle, and feel fortunate that in my own country such restrictive changes are not on the table and for the time being, my ovaries are 'mine'.

NB: Team Aniston. Obviously.