Pro-life group fails to win support for initiative
Before 2002, women asking for an abortion needed to have a professional verify that the procedure was necessary for mental health reasons
Keystone
The initiators of a popular initiative demanding a ban on abortion in Switzerland have failed to collect a sufficient number of signatures.
This content was published on
1 minute
swissinfo.ch
The deadline for the collection of signatures for the initiative entitled “Protection of life to plug a multi-billion pound hole” will run out on August 26.
But it is already clear today that the committee will not manage to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures within the required 18 months, national radio and television RTS reported.
“We have collected so few signatures that it’s not worth even starting to count them,” Heinz Hürzeler, head of the committee, told RTS.
The pro-life initiative demanded that the sentence “Human life is protected” be added to the Swiss constitution.
Since October 2002 abortions in Switzerland are reimbursed and legal within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.
In February 2014, more than two-thirds of Swiss voters rejected an initiative demanding that abortions should no longer be covered by compulsory health insurance.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Abortions to remain covered by health insurance
This content was published on
Voter turnout on Sunday was about 56%; of those, 69.8% rejected the initiative. The highest percentage of “no” votes – 89.1% – was cast in canton Vaud. Only one canton said “yes”: Appenzell Inner Rhodes, with 50.9% of the votes. Backed by an inter-party committee made up essentially of conservative Christians, the initiative called for the introduction…
This content was published on
Afternoon sunshine as well as literature in several languages fill the waiting room on an upper floor of the women’s clinic at Bern University Hospital. It’s the family planning department, where women seeking advice can get their questions answered. Since 2002, the cost of an abortion has been covered by basic health insurance in Switzerland.…
This content was published on
Backed by an inter-party committee made up essentially of conservative Christians, the people’s initiative was signed by about 110,000 voters – making it eligible for a popular vote. It calls for the introduction of a new article in the federal constitution and states that abortion and foetal reduction (the elimination of one or more embryos…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.