Doctors would be able to share information about terminations if bill is approved

Germany’s coalition government agreed in principle on Tuesday to soften a Nazi-era law that forbids doctors from advertising or providing information on abortion services.

It would allow gynaecologists, hospitals and public health services to share essential information about where and how women can terminate unwanted pregnancies.

The bill is expected to be approved by Angela Merkel’s cabinet on 6 February and then pass through both houses of parliament.

German law allows abortions but effectively discourages them through various obstacles, including the law being voted on, article 219a, which dates back to May 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler assumed full powers of Nazi Germany.

Last year the gynaecologist Kristina Hänel was fined €6,000 (£5,200) for breaking the law by publishing information about abortion services on her website.

The case revived an emotional debate in the coalition government led by Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

Its junior partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), wanted the article scrapped altogether, a demand backed by leftwing opposition parties the Greens and Die Linke. In the end, the ruling parties reached a compromise that many read as a defeat for the SPD.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Last year the gynaecologist Kristina Hänel was fined €6,000 for publishing information on about abortion services on her website. Photograph: Silas Stein/AFP/Getty Images

The health minister, Jens Spahn, of the CDU, said women needed access to crucial information but added that abortions should not be advertised because they were “not a medical procedure like any other”.

Andrea Nahles, the SPD leader, nonetheless welcomed the agreement, tweeting that “women are finally getting the information they need”.

The draft bill, seen by AFP, would allow federal health authorities and the German Medical Association to publish nationwide lists of doctors who perform abortions.

In other changes, the age limit for women entitled to free contraceptives would be raised from 20 to 22 years, and student medical training on performing abortions would be expanded.

The Green party’s co-chief, Annalena Baerbock, criticised the compromise deal, arguing that it signalled lingering distrustof a woman’s ability to choose.

The Linke party’s lawmaker Cornelia Möhring also said that, by refusing to scrap the article outright, the government was continuing to treat abortion as “a grubby issue” and a “taboo subject”.

Germany, despite being a leading voice for women’s rights in the 1970s, imposes tight restrictions on abortion, permitting it only under strictly-regulated circumstances.

It is left out of university coursebooks for student doctors and is not accessible in parts of the country.

A woman who wants to have an abortion within the first trimester is required to attend a consultation at a registered centre.

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The aim of the interview is to “incite the woman to continue the pregnancy”, according to the rules, even if in the end she has the final say.

Excluding special circumstances, such as a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother, or one arising from rape, abortion is not a procedure that is reimbursable by health insurance.

In some regions, including in the predominantly Catholic state of Bavaria, it may be necessary to travel 100km (60 miles) to find a doctor who performs the procedure.

Germany records an average of 100,000 abortions per 790,000 births, about half the rate of neighbouring France.