A debate over proposals to scrap a Nazi-era law that forbids German doctors from providing information on abortion is expected to set the tone of the new coalition government when it is voted on this week.



Under paragraph 219a of the German penal code, it is a crime to advertise, offer or give information on abortion services, and those found guilty of doing so can face a two-year jail sentence or a hefty fine.

The liberal parties in the Bundestag, once showing a united front, are now split on whether to amend the law or scrap it, while the conservative parties – Angela Merkel’s CDU, the CSU and the far-right AfD – are in favour of keeping it intact.

The Social Democrats (SPD), in a campaign led by MP Eva Högl who has called the clause “out of date”, had backed the initial proposal by the pro-business FDP, the Greens and far-left Die Linke to abolish it. But the party appeared to backtrack days after reaching a coalition agreement with the CDU with which it will re-enter a government and said it was seeking a compromise instead.

The FDP has also said it now favours an adjustment rather than the abolition of the clause.

The issue was made prominent by Kristina Hänel, a gynaecologist who refused to pay a €6,000 fine after a court found her guilty of “advertising” abortions in November 2017 because of a PDF factsheet which was downloadable on her practice website. The judge said in his ruling the law was meant to prevent abortion from becoming “normalised”.

Hänel is appealing against the decision and has refused to remove the information from her website. She has led a campaign to raise awareness about the clause, collecting over 150,000 signatures demanding a law change, which she presented to parliament.

Hänel told the Berlin newspaper TAZ: “It’s not as if anyone was in favour of abortions. Neither myself nor the women who come to me. But it’s damn well my duty to treat them medically”.

Advocates of a change to the law say Germans have only begun to realise how restrictive their abortion laws are due to Hänel’s campaign.

Abortion itself is covered by section 218 of Germany’s criminal code, in which it is referred to as a crime and an “offence against life” alongside murder and manslaughter.

Whilst remaining technically forbidden in any instance, it is not punished if it is carried out during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy if the woman has received counselling from an authorised adviser first, and has waited three days before the procedure is carried out.

Growing awareness over the origins of section 219a are also fuelling anger, few realising until Hänel brought her case that it was introduced in 1933 by the Nazi party, amid a raft of judicial reforms to criminalise Jewish doctors, homosexuals and communists.

In a nod to its heritage, some campaigners for the abolition have taken to holding placards with the slogan: “Paragraph 219a is so 1933.”

Political observers had believed the SPD might use the issue to disprove critics who said that by re-entering a government with Merkel’s conservatives, it would be unable to fight for its social democratic principles. The law change would have been a way to distance itself from the CDU/CSU.

Others said the SPD would only be strong enough to back an abolition of the clause if in opposition and that if it backed down on this issue it would set the tone for the next four years of parliament, during which the SPD would be forced to toe the line.

The opposition Greens say they will continue to push for a change to the law which would allow doctors to inform women about legal forms of abortion. They stress there is a significant difference between informing and advertising services.



There has been a huge increase in the number of doctors prosecuted for breeching 219a in recent years.



Cornelia Möhring of Die Linke, who is backing its abolition, said: “I don’t know any woman who would say: ‘what a cool advert, I’m going to get an abortion’”. Doctors who carried out abortions illegally were finding themselves stigmatised and uncertain about their legal rights, leading to many withdrawing information from their websites, she added.

But Stephan Harbarth of the CDU, said 219a was about protecting unborn lives as stated in the constitution. “The abolition of the paragraph would have the effect of making abortion appear to be something quite normal,” he said.

Campaigners on both sides have been swift to make connections between the German debate and the upcoming referendum on repealing the abortion act in Ireland, as well as the tightening of abortion laws in neighbouring Poland.