Spain’s government has approved a draft of a reform of the country’s abortion law, reinstating the right for women aged 16 and over to terminate a pregnancy without needing parental consent.

The law, which must now be approved by both houses in Spain’s Congress, also introduces measures such as allowing women to take time off for period pains, makes the morning after pill free and bans surrogate pregnancies.

The government is seeking to get the law approved before elections next year. It has yet to receive a report from the General Council of the Judiciary or another from the attorney general’s office on its content. Irene Montero, the equality minister, said that the delay in receiving the reports should not “limit or paralyse” the process. She said they would be added to the draft when they were ready.

…The main purpose of the latest reform is to remove the need for 16 and 17-year-olds to obtain permission from their parents to seek an abortion. It also introduces measures such as guaranteeing confidentiality for women by destroying the post-abortion paper trail, and calls for a register of conscientious objectors to abortion so that public hospitals can ensure they have staff available to carry out the procedure.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1449e2ce-287a-11ed-9092-6adde03bf612?shareToken=30c772e877bb589f0f14db333561fea3

Nobody likes to see videos of themselves from a party the night before. They’re almost always embarrassing documents of how inexplicably sweaty you were, your flailing dance moves and misplaced confidence, the way your makeup slid slowly around your face. But for the Finnish prime minister, 36-year-old Sanna Marin, a video of her partying was a little more than embarrassing. Footage leaked last week of Marin at a private party, dancing for the camera and looking drunk, which managed to kick off a full-on scandal in Finland. Across Europe, some complained that she was an embarrassment, that it was unprofessional, that it was proof she wasn’t taking her job—which currently includes ushering her country into NATO—seriously enough. One person wrote online that she should “take her leather jacket and resign.”

…Besides, have you seen the video? She looks great! She is dancing in a way that is not embarrassing! I will go to my grave without having erased the memory of Theresa May’s various dancing attempts, which looked like you instructed an elderly Sim to bust a move, or Boris Johnson dancing at his own wedding in the manner of a bear cub succumbing to the effects of a tranquilizer dart. And anyway, it doesn’t even really count as dancing if they’re wearing a suit, clapping awkwardly with their eyes darting around for the nearest recording device. Marin was letting off some steam. Good! For too long the world has been run by stuffy losers who go out less than the Olympic torch.

…A little perspective seems warranted here. Do the majority of people in Finland actually think this reflects badly on their PM? There’s some reason for hope. Women in Finland began posting videos of them dancing in “solidarity with Sanna.” And it seems that almost all of the people taking issue with her behavior were either followers of the opposing political party, or—you surely saw this coming—alt-right misogynists.

A woman? Being hot, fun, and in charge of a nation? Not if the forum incels can help it. It turns out the whole scandal kicked off when, on the Finnish equivalent of 4chan, people began to claim that the people in the video were on drugs, due to the lack of visible bottles and the possible use of the term “flour gang” by one of the partiers, a term that isn’t even used to mean drugs in Finland. And surprise, surprise, many of those who took issue with Marin’s behavior spent last month are defending a conservative politician who was accused of grooming underage girls for sex. Marin may well turn out to be a nightmare politician. But aside from the misogyny, criticizing someone for being caught in the act of having a laugh is just very, very stupid in this moment. Pack it in.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/08/sanna-marin-party-finald-prime-minister-dancing-scandal.html?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=article&utm_content=twitter_share