Spanish deputies adopted on Thursday, at first reading, a bill creating “menstrual leave” for women suffering from painful periods, a measure unprecedented in Europe intended, according to the left-wing government, to break a taboo.
This bill – adopted with 190 votes in favor, 154 against and 5 abstentions – also strengthens access to abortion in public hospitals, a right that remains strewn with pitfalls in this country with a strong Catholic tradition.
This text will now have to be voted on by the Senate and return to the Chamber of Deputies if ever it was modified during its passage through the upper house, before becoming law.
“This legislature is a legislature of feminist conquests”, welcomed, before the deputies, the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, of the radical left party Podemos, ally of the Socialists of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in the government.
“We recognize menstrual health as part of the right to health and we fight stigma and silence,” she added.
If Mme Montero had indicated in the spring that the sick leave, which doctors could grant to women suffering from painful menstruation, “would not have a time limit”, no details appear in the bill on this subject.
Controversial measure
When this text is definitively adopted, Spain will become the first country in Europe and one of the few in the world to integrate this measure into its legislation, like in particular Japan, Indonesia or Zambia.
This “leave”, however, aroused reluctance within the socialist wing of the government and was criticized by the UGT union. This central union, one of the two largest in the country, is concerned about a possible brake on the hiring of women by employers wanting to avoid these absences.
This law “will cause an opposite effect for women” resulting in “marginalization, stigmatization” and “negative consequences on the labor market”, denounced the right-wing opposition of the Popular Party (PP) by the voice of the deputy Marta Gonzalez Vazquez.
This “menstrual leave” is one of the flagship measures of a much broader bill that also plans to strengthen access to abortion in public hospitals, which perform less than 15% of abortions in the country due to in particular a massive conscientious objection from doctors.
Currently, women must therefore travel hundreds of kilometers to have an abortion in certain areas due to the lack of public services and the absence of a specialized clinic nearby.
This text must also allow minors to abort without the authorization of their parents at 16 and 17 years old by reversing an obligation introduced by a previous Conservative government in 2015.
Abortion was decriminalized in Spain in 1985 then legalized in 2010, but abortion remains a right fraught with pitfalls in this country of Catholic tradition.
This bill also provides for a strengthening of sex education in schools as well as the free distribution of contraceptives or menstrual hygiene products in high schools.
Spain is a country considered as a benchmark in terms of women’s rights in Europe, particularly since the adoption in 2004 of a law on gender violence. Claiming to be feminist, the Sanchez government has more women than men.