Spanish senate approves abortion law

The new law allows the procedure without restrictions up to 14 weeks and gives 16 and 17-year-olds the right to have abortions without parental consent.

The senate's passage of the Bill on Wednesday gives it final approval.

The law brings the country in line with its more secular neighbours in northern Europe.

It is the latest of a series of reforms undertaken by Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who first took office in 2004 and has ruffled feathers among many in the traditionally Catholic country by legalising gay marriage and making divorce easier.

Carmen Duenas, a spokeswoman for the leading conservative opposition Popular Party in the Senate, accused the government of trying "to bring in unrestricted abortion.

"The government wants to do away with one of the pillars of Spanish society, which is the family," Ms Duenas alleged.

But Senator Leire Pajin, the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers Party's number three, said the new law "paid off an outstanding debt" to women, offering them a choice and bringing an end to illegal abortions.

Under the previous law, which dates back to 1985, Spanish women could in theory go to jail for getting an abortion outside certain strict limits - up to week 12 in case of rape and week 22 if the fetus is malformed.

But abortion has been in effect widely available because women can assert mental distress as sole grounds for having an abortion, regardless of how late the pregnancy is.

Most of the more than 100,000 abortions carried out each year in Spain were early-term ones that fell under this category.

The new Bill was automatically approved when a majority of senators rejected three proposals by right-wing parties to have it vetoed and then rejected a total of 88 amendments.

It will be published in the state bulletin next month and will take effect four months later.