Beatrix von Storch
Abortion Advertisement
German Bundestag, February 21, 2019,
Plenarprotokoll 19/83, pp. 9742-9743
[Beatrix von Storch is an
Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Berlin. She is a lawyer and
here responds to a recent proposal by the government to ease restrictions on
the advertisement of abortion in Germany.]
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
Dear colleagues of the Democratic and Social
Union. We can now indeed conclusively dispense with the “Christian”. After
marriage for all, you now also capitulate on the defense of life. Even a
capitulation in consultation is a capitulation. That you put a highly sensitive
legal statute through the first reading, the committee referral and the second
reading within one week is nothing other than an insolence. Obviously the
coalition must clear away such an issue that appears bad for both parties.
Michael
Frieser (CDU/CSU): You could have come to the hearings.
The SPD for the moment dreads the break up of
the coalition; it is too weak for new elections. And for the Union it is simply
about the hold on power; for that they must renounce their own values, even
when there is indeed nothing left of their own values.
What remains on the table is a legal issue
that disturbs the heart of our constitutional order like scarcely any other.
The federal constitutional court has in many decisions, the latest in 1993,
asserted the following: Unborn life does not develop into a person, but as a
person, and indeed from the beginning. The unborn person has a proper right to
life from the beginning.
Niema
Movassat (Linke): You are reading from the false paragraphs!
And human dignity belongs to the unborn, from
the beginning. On that account, according to the judgments of the federal
constitutional court, abortion is illegal and is exempt only according to widely
decided prerequisites. On that account, the court has also decided that the obligatory
counseling must always be directed towards life. It should save life and avoid
abortion.
Briefly, section 218, which is closely
related with section 219 – you will recognize the similarity – is of the indispensable
core material of our constitutional order.
Ulle
Schauws (Bündnis90/Grünen): That is not true!
He who wants to do away with or eliminate it
is beyond the pale of the constitutional order. I demand that the Federal Office
for Defense of the Constitution place under observation those organizations
advocating repeal of section 218. And of Family Minister Giffey I also demand:
Finally take a stand in defense of human life! Stand for the defense of persons
not yet born! Stand on the side of life!
Because abortion is and must remain illegal,
must also the ban on advertisement of abortion remain. What is forbidden must
not be advertised. He who solicits a crime becomes ultimately an instigator.
Michael
Fieser (CDU/CSU): So does the AfD agree to the compromise?
That is also true in the exceptional case
when the crime is not legally prosecuted. What was previously forbidden as
advertising is now sold to us as information. That is semantic horse-trading [Rosstäuscherei], I must say; pitiful
horse-trading.
What is advertising? When a
service provider makes public information concerning his service for which he
receives a pecuniary return, namely his fee, then it is not simply information,
it is advertising. The term “pecuniary return” [Vermögensvorteil] you yourselves have used in your draft. Your attempt to
simply define away this problem for the sake of coalition peace is a plaintive
failure.
This draft statute is a further step along
the fatal path to the repeal of section 218 and the normalization of abortion.
Where that leads has been indicated by the Jusos
[young socialists] national congress in December. They want the complete
repeal of section 218. The State of New York now permits abortion in the ninth
month. We do not want such contempt for human life in Germany. That is a fundamental
contradiction of the understanding of our basic law [Grundgesetz].
The defense of unborn life is based on the
constitution and is inseparably bound to Article I: “Human dignity shall be
inviolable.” The Union parties have renounced the defense of life. The silence
of the established churches is deafening. Thus is the AfD the last defender of
unborn life in Germany. With complete conviction, we reject your draft.
Many thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
