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Germany Ends Ban on Abortion Advertisement

MandieD 4y ago
People need to realize that “woman who might need an abortion” is not necessarily a healthy 16-18 year old with poor impulse control but is also likely to be a married, working mother of 3 barely keeping up with mortgage payments who wasn’t told that the antibiotic for her sinus infection could make her birth control pills ineffective, or a woman with a dearly wanted pregnancy that is now causing her to bleed and have a weird pain on one side, or a 12-year-old girl who didn’t understand what her big brother’s buddy was doing to her. Happy to see the country I live in overturning that Nazi law that aimed to produce more Aryan babies in favor of acknowledging that women are rational beings. The counseling restriction is still infantilizing, but at least you have a lot of discretion in which organization you get it from - ProFamilia allows that you have better knowledge of your life than they do and have made your own decision, and will just help you implement it. I am angry and hurt by the place I'm from and still have most of my family, because a situation that was handled rationally and kindly in Germany (an ectopic pregnancy - no “counseling session” aside from a doctor at the hospital factually advising me of my medical options) would make me hesitant to even go to the emergency room in Texas. No one really knows that they have an ectopic pregnancy until an actual doctor examines them, and the only treatment option is which manner of termination you and the doctor choose. Otherwise, it’s probably a normal miscarriage, which is treated with painkillers and encouragement to try again in a few months in reasonable places, but looks to be a legal risk in Texas.
- paxcoder 4y ago
  - dymk 4y ago
    What child?
    - paxcoder 4y ago
  - trasz 4y ago
    Thing is, the “child” here is purely imaginary. It’s a fringe theory, proven to be wrong not only by secular ethicists and most religions, but even Acquinas himself. It’s not any different from anti vax or flat earth.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      Are you suggesting a fetus that is 20 weeks is not a child? It has brain waves, a heartbeat, different DNA from the mother, perhaps different chromosomes than the mother, legs, arms, etc.
      - trasz 4y ago
        I’m suggesting it doesn’t matter, because even if it was an adult human, it still wouldn’t override other persons right to decide about their own body. Starting this discussion with an argument that attempts to derail it is very telling. Also, honestly, the "life from conception" is fringe even from Christian theology point of view. It was debunked by Acquinas himself, most of Christianity believes it's bullshit, which also used to be the opinion shared by Catholic Church until XIX century.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        First, it may override another person's right but it may not. In general there is a belief we are obligated to provide the necessities. Providing sustenance to a fetus is the necessities. This is up to debate, but is not as simple as you are making it out to be. Second, Aquinas was wrong on multiple things according to the Catholic Church. No Catholic believes Aquinas was infallible. Thirdly, you are also (intentionally?) misinterpreting Aquinas. He did not believe ensoulment happened until later in the pregnancy, but was opposed to abortion at any stage because it violated natural law. Fourth, most of Christianity does not believe it is bullshit since the majority of Christians are Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, etc and appear to be in line with their Churches teachings. Maybe you mean the majority of American Christians? If that is what you mean, who cares? It doesn't even matter if it is the majority of Christians in the world. Christianity (well the denominations most Christians are in) are not democracies. Fifth, it doesn't really matter if Christians agree or disagree with abortion. You can easily argue against abortion through purely secular arguments. Funny how proabortion people are always the first to bring up religion.
  - verall 4y ago
    If you're bent on arguing this from first principals, rather than a nuanced discussion about the quality of life of an unwanted child, remember that parents are not obligated at any other point to give up parts of their own body for their "child". It is only during a pregnancy where a woman is obligated to provide nutrients directly from her bloodstream. This is a "right" that the child, once born, no longer has - even if the child needs it to survive, the parents are under no obligation to donate blood or organs.
    - paxcoder 4y ago
    - hellojesus 4y ago
      Doesn't it logically have to go to first principals? If we're talking about quality of life of unwanted children, why not allow people to abort their children post birth, say 3 or even 12 years into its life?
      - majewsky 4y ago
        No, because in that case there are other options. A 3-year old child can be put up for adoption if the parents are unable to provide adequate care for it. At our current medical level of progress, doing the same for a 3-week-old embryo is impossible. If it were possible to transplant embryos instead of aborting the pregnancy, the moral argument around abortions would look very different. Edit note: I initially mistyped "put up for adoption" as "put up for abortion". This has since been fixed.
        hellojesus 4y ago
        Why do other options have anything to do with it? So far as I've observed, policy makers in the US are pushing for abortion up until birth. We will soon have the tech to grow children in artifical wombs from conception. Why does self sufficiency define the cutoff for murder when it is time variant, and the child will necessarily grow the ability to live untethered?
- bobthechef 4y ago
AndyMcConachie 4y ago
It only took them ~85 years.
- V__ 4y ago
  Germany often gets things right, but not before doing it wrong or ignoring the problem for a few decades.
  - docdeek 4y ago
    Your reply reminded me of a quote about Americans attributed to various people, including Churchill: You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternative...
  - egeozcan 4y ago
    > but not before doing it wrong or ignoring the problem for a few decades Or talking in circles to find the perfect solution, and it taking very long to realize that no perfect solution exists. A healthy dose of pragmatism would make this lovely country... "perfect" :)
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      "A healthy dose of pragmatism would make this lovely country... "perfect" :) " Ah well, I think there are quite some other traits missing and there is too much stiffness. I am curious if the upcoming legalisation of weed will help, or not.
- schroeding 4y ago
  Better late than never, eh? :)
- oaiey 4y ago
  The topic of abortion was pretty hot in the 90s and 2000s as far as I remember. So despite being an "old" law, it does not mean it was so outdated. Regards being a Nazi law: not all Nazi laws are evil or outdated. They were the administration of a big country in overall very innovative times.
fabian2k 4y ago
It is an odd parallel that this happened on exactly the day Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US.
- wreath 4y ago
  - fabian2k 4y ago
    This change has been in the works for a while, certainly longer than the leaked draft of the US Supreme Court decision. The timing is purely accidental. This was a well-known issue that interfered with doctors providing neutral information about abortions. Once the government switched to the current coalition of social democrats, greens and liberal democrats this change was put into motion. This happened simply because conservatives are not in power right now in the federal government here.
  - galfarragem 4y ago
    > Regardless, it's a good news/move. This is dystopic. I'm not anti-abortion but I can't think of one reason that promoting abortion is a "good move" to make a better society. We all know that ads work. Abortion should be a (legal) last resort solution and we already know that we have that option.
    - egeozcan 4y ago
      > I can't think of one reason that promoting abortion is a "good move" So that people can compare their options when they do need it? So that people can see that the option does exist in the beginning? If they can promote any other medical procedure, why not this?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - skrause 4y ago
      The law was so strict that a clinic couldn't even mention in a single sentence somewhere on their website that they also provide abortions. This isn't about TV advertisement campaigns telling you to get your weekly abortion.
Hermel 4y ago
Still banned in Germany: ads for lawyers, ads for doctors, ads for cigarettes, ads for gambling, and ads for drugs that need a prescription. When traveling to the US, it always strikes me how different public ads are. The US has more public ads and also much more aggressive ads. An ad for an injury lawyer would be unthinkable in Europa.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  In the UK, injury lawyers seem to be allowed (but only those lawyers, I don't recall seeing a general lawyer advert, though I don't think they're explicitly banned). But maybe I just don't watch enough TV. In fact, they make up a significant percentage of adverts!
- mr_toad 4y ago
  The US has a reputation for litigiousness and comically large judgements. That probably influences the amount of legal advertising.
  - rafram 4y ago
    Not really - the US isn’t an especially litigious society and that myth was created by large corporations to cause a chilling effect on justified personal injury lawsuits: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/america-litigious-society-myth https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/americ...
    - antientropic 4y ago
      Not a very convincing article, since it presents some statistics about the US (e.g. "only 10% of injured Americans ever file a claim for compensation and only 2% file lawsuits") but does not compare them to other countries, so we can't tell whether the US is more or less litigious than the rest of the world.
- ThePhysicist 4y ago
  It's not true that doctors can't advertise, there are just restrictions of the type of advertisement they can do. There are e.g. many online portals that list doctors with their specific services and contain appraisals by customers. It would just not be allowed for the doctor to do such kind of appraisals ("I'm the greatest dentist in Berlin") by themselves. In any case it's hardly an issue for them as most doctors are fully booked for months, so they rarely need to advertise their services. Companies like Doctolib therefore aim more at optimizing the booking process to e.g. ensure that canceled bookings get backfilled automatically to increase the overall booking rate, though even that is usually not a problem and most doctors overbook their appointments to make sure they stay busy during the day (that's why you often have to wait 30-60 minutes here even if you have an appointment scheduled).
martin_a 4y ago
The headline is extremely misleading. It's not about "advertising" for abortions but about _providing information_ on abortions as a doctor.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  That's what advertising is, literally, not in the commercial sense where you blast people on TV etc. to convince them they need your product/service. In the past it wasn't even allowed to advertise on your website that you do abortions, or have more information on it in your waiting room, so patients had to actively ask if you offer it.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  advertising's prime goal is to raise awareness. If you know that something exists you are much, much more likely to consider it.
dathinab 4y ago
Be aware that "advertisement" here is in the legalese sense. I.e. this is less about "ad" advertisements but more about e.g. doctors having flyers better informing about what is possible/legal in the waiting room and similar. Like before you basically had to "somehow magically know" who could do an abortion as even mentioning it on the doctors (hospitals) website might be counted as advertisement.
- singularity2001 4y ago
  That makes more sense: billboard advertisement would go too far as it would encourage otherwise unwarranted behavior (similar to smoking : if you see someone cool doing it you might consider it, without any prior motivation)
  - Kaze404 4y ago
    If you see someone cool having an abortion you'd intentionally get pregnant to also get one? I don't get it.
    - viraptor 4y ago
      You'd show it as an easily accessible alternative, potentially reducing the strict use of contraceptives. And overall that would have worse consequences than preventing pregnancy in the first place.
      - solar-ice 4y ago
        Can you show any evidence that people knowing they can get an abortion and where, leads to reduced contraception usage? Actually… next time you’re close to sleeping with someone, say “hey, you can just get an abortion, we don’t need to use a condom”. Tell me what she says.
        viraptor 4y ago
        Evidence, no, that's why I wrote "potentially". This idea is extrapolated from something that already happens though - if people know plan B is easily accessible, they're not as regular with taking a daily pill as they'd be otherwise. Even though in practice that means higher risks. This I heard directly - don't know if there's any study. The whole idea is not about making a conscious, calculated choice. It's about how comfortable you become with certain risk. It's on the same level as: if we start advertising how safe airbags are, would we see the average speed get a tiny increase nationally.
brodo 4y ago
Abortion is legal in Germany the same way weed is legal in the Netherlands: it‘s not. The law is just not enforced. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__218.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__218.html
- morelisp 4y ago
  It's a little more precise than that. It's illegal but also formally has no penalty for a variety of cases. Ending the "advertising" ban is a great step forward in letting people actually access doctors' services. Legalization seems unlikely, unfortunately, though the news around Dobbs has at least opened up the discussion again.
- fabian2k 4y ago
  The important part is §218a which declares the situations in which abortion is legal. This is not something like prosecutorial discretion, it's still a matter of law.
  - fosefx 4y ago
    English translation: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1964 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st... Most notable: "The pregnant woman does not incur the penalty specified in section 218 if the termination was performed by a physician after counselling (section 219) and no more than 22 weeks have elapsed since conception"
    - sReinwald 4y ago
      > [...] and no more than 22 weeks have elapsed since conception You seem to have made a quite unlucky typo there. It's 12 weeks since conception, not 22. We are not that progressive.
      - piceas 4y ago
        No typo according to the link. The 22 weeks with conditions is correct.
bobthechef 4y ago
[dead]
ekianjo 4y ago
funny you can advertise this in Germany now but still having virtual blood in video games is somewhat controversial.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  "advertise" in this context is not about Billboards ("pay one abortion, get a second free!") but about doctors putting information on the procedures and about the fact the offer abortion on flyers and their website. Before this law was changed people seeking and abortion had to ask whether they do such procedures or know some doctor who does.
treffer 4y ago
To clarify... This is at least partially the aftermath of a lawsuite if I recall correctly. There was a case where a doctor listed abortions as one of their offerings on their website, and that was seen as an advertisement. [Citation needed, my memory might fail me here] So "no advertisement" pretty much means "don't tell anyone anywhere beforehand". And that was seen as non-helpful, especially as abortions are legal in Germany.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  > And that was seen as non-helpful, especially as abortions are legal in Germany. Nope, the criminal code forbids abortion, but doesn't punish it in some circumstance (within some months of pregnancy, after a counselling session and some time for thinking it over etc.) There are huge debates to make it more legal by turning this around or clearer restricting in criminal code.
  - treffer 4y ago
    Hrm, looked it up out of curiosity... §218a lists that it is not a crime under certain circumstances ("Tatbestand des § 218 ist nicht verwirklicht, wenn"), but the heading of that one is "Straflosigkeit", so "no punishment". IANAL but this reads like it is not a crime under the listed conditions. Which is different from no punishment.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Yes, that's what brought it back into the spotlight. The parties currently in the government all somewhat ran on the promise of overturning this law as a part of a general modernization (the more conservative party, which is now out, blocked a lot of it).

People need to realize that “woman who might need an abortion” is not necessarily a healthy 16-18 year old with poor impulse control but is also likely to be a married, working mother of 3 barely keeping up with mortgage payments who wasn’t told that the antibiotic for her sinus infection could make her birth control pills ineffective, or a woman with a dearly wanted pregnancy that is now causing her to bleed and have a weird pain on one side, or a 12-year-old girl who didn’t understand what her big brother’s buddy was doing to her. Happy to see the country I live in overturning that Nazi law that aimed to produce more Aryan babies in favor of acknowledging that women are rational beings. The counseling restriction is still infantilizing, but at least you have a lot of discretion in which organization you get it from - ProFamilia allows that you have better knowledge of your life than they do and have made your own decision, and will just help you implement it. I am angry and hurt by the place I'm from and still have most of my family, because a situation that was handled rationally and kindly in Germany (an ectopic pregnancy - no “counseling session” aside from a doctor at the hospital factually advising me of my medical options) would make me hesitant to even go to the emergency room in Texas. No one really knows that they have an ectopic pregnancy until an actual doctor examines them, and the only treatment option is which manner of termination you and the doctor choose. Otherwise, it’s probably a normal miscarriage, which is treated with painkillers and encouragement to try again in a few months in reasonable places, but looks to be a legal risk in Texas.

paxcoder 4y ago
- dymk 4y ago
  What child?
  - paxcoder 4y ago
- trasz 4y ago
  Thing is, the “child” here is purely imaginary. It’s a fringe theory, proven to be wrong not only by secular ethicists and most religions, but even Acquinas himself. It’s not any different from anti vax or flat earth.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Are you suggesting a fetus that is 20 weeks is not a child? It has brain waves, a heartbeat, different DNA from the mother, perhaps different chromosomes than the mother, legs, arms, etc.
    - trasz 4y ago
      I’m suggesting it doesn’t matter, because even if it was an adult human, it still wouldn’t override other persons right to decide about their own body. Starting this discussion with an argument that attempts to derail it is very telling. Also, honestly, the "life from conception" is fringe even from Christian theology point of view. It was debunked by Acquinas himself, most of Christianity believes it's bullshit, which also used to be the opinion shared by Catholic Church until XIX century.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        First, it may override another person's right but it may not. In general there is a belief we are obligated to provide the necessities. Providing sustenance to a fetus is the necessities. This is up to debate, but is not as simple as you are making it out to be. Second, Aquinas was wrong on multiple things according to the Catholic Church. No Catholic believes Aquinas was infallible. Thirdly, you are also (intentionally?) misinterpreting Aquinas. He did not believe ensoulment happened until later in the pregnancy, but was opposed to abortion at any stage because it violated natural law. Fourth, most of Christianity does not believe it is bullshit since the majority of Christians are Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, etc and appear to be in line with their Churches teachings. Maybe you mean the majority of American Christians? If that is what you mean, who cares? It doesn't even matter if it is the majority of Christians in the world. Christianity (well the denominations most Christians are in) are not democracies. Fifth, it doesn't really matter if Christians agree or disagree with abortion. You can easily argue against abortion through purely secular arguments. Funny how proabortion people are always the first to bring up religion.
- verall 4y ago
  If you're bent on arguing this from first principals, rather than a nuanced discussion about the quality of life of an unwanted child, remember that parents are not obligated at any other point to give up parts of their own body for their "child". It is only during a pregnancy where a woman is obligated to provide nutrients directly from her bloodstream. This is a "right" that the child, once born, no longer has - even if the child needs it to survive, the parents are under no obligation to donate blood or organs.
  - paxcoder 4y ago
  - hellojesus 4y ago
    Doesn't it logically have to go to first principals? If we're talking about quality of life of unwanted children, why not allow people to abort their children post birth, say 3 or even 12 years into its life?
    - majewsky 4y ago
      No, because in that case there are other options. A 3-year old child can be put up for adoption if the parents are unable to provide adequate care for it. At our current medical level of progress, doing the same for a 3-week-old embryo is impossible. If it were possible to transplant embryos instead of aborting the pregnancy, the moral argument around abortions would look very different. Edit note: I initially mistyped "put up for adoption" as "put up for abortion". This has since been fixed.
      - hellojesus 4y ago
        Why do other options have anything to do with it? So far as I've observed, policy makers in the US are pushing for abortion up until birth. We will soon have the tech to grow children in artifical wombs from conception. Why does self sufficiency define the cutoff for murder when it is time variant, and the child will necessarily grow the ability to live untethered?
bobthechef 4y ago

AndyMcConachie 4y ago

It only took them ~85 years.

V__ 4y ago
Germany often gets things right, but not before doing it wrong or ignoring the problem for a few decades.
- docdeek 4y ago
  Your reply reminded me of a quote about Americans attributed to various people, including Churchill: You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternative...
- egeozcan 4y ago
  > but not before doing it wrong or ignoring the problem for a few decades Or talking in circles to find the perfect solution, and it taking very long to realize that no perfect solution exists. A healthy dose of pragmatism would make this lovely country... "perfect" :)
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "A healthy dose of pragmatism would make this lovely country... "perfect" :) " Ah well, I think there are quite some other traits missing and there is too much stiffness. I am curious if the upcoming legalisation of weed will help, or not.
schroeding 4y ago
Better late than never, eh? :)
oaiey 4y ago
The topic of abortion was pretty hot in the 90s and 2000s as far as I remember. So despite being an "old" law, it does not mean it was so outdated. Regards being a Nazi law: not all Nazi laws are evil or outdated. They were the administration of a big country in overall very innovative times.

fabian2k 4y ago

It is an odd parallel that this happened on exactly the day Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US.

wreath 4y ago
- fabian2k 4y ago
  This change has been in the works for a while, certainly longer than the leaked draft of the US Supreme Court decision. The timing is purely accidental. This was a well-known issue that interfered with doctors providing neutral information about abortions. Once the government switched to the current coalition of social democrats, greens and liberal democrats this change was put into motion. This happened simply because conservatives are not in power right now in the federal government here.
- galfarragem 4y ago
  > Regardless, it's a good news/move. This is dystopic. I'm not anti-abortion but I can't think of one reason that promoting abortion is a "good move" to make a better society. We all know that ads work. Abortion should be a (legal) last resort solution and we already know that we have that option.
  - egeozcan 4y ago
    > I can't think of one reason that promoting abortion is a "good move" So that people can compare their options when they do need it? So that people can see that the option does exist in the beginning? If they can promote any other medical procedure, why not this?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - skrause 4y ago
    The law was so strict that a clinic couldn't even mention in a single sentence somewhere on their website that they also provide abortions. This isn't about TV advertisement campaigns telling you to get your weekly abortion.

Hermel 4y ago

Still banned in Germany: ads for lawyers, ads for doctors, ads for cigarettes, ads for gambling, and ads for drugs that need a prescription. When traveling to the US, it always strikes me how different public ads are. The US has more public ads and also much more aggressive ads. An ad for an injury lawyer would be unthinkable in Europa.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago
In the UK, injury lawyers seem to be allowed (but only those lawyers, I don't recall seeing a general lawyer advert, though I don't think they're explicitly banned). But maybe I just don't watch enough TV. In fact, they make up a significant percentage of adverts!
mr_toad 4y ago
The US has a reputation for litigiousness and comically large judgements. That probably influences the amount of legal advertising.
- rafram 4y ago
  Not really - the US isn’t an especially litigious society and that myth was created by large corporations to cause a chilling effect on justified personal injury lawsuits: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/america-litigious-society-myth https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/americ...
  - antientropic 4y ago
    Not a very convincing article, since it presents some statistics about the US (e.g. "only 10% of injured Americans ever file a claim for compensation and only 2% file lawsuits") but does not compare them to other countries, so we can't tell whether the US is more or less litigious than the rest of the world.
ThePhysicist 4y ago
It's not true that doctors can't advertise, there are just restrictions of the type of advertisement they can do. There are e.g. many online portals that list doctors with their specific services and contain appraisals by customers. It would just not be allowed for the doctor to do such kind of appraisals ("I'm the greatest dentist in Berlin") by themselves. In any case it's hardly an issue for them as most doctors are fully booked for months, so they rarely need to advertise their services. Companies like Doctolib therefore aim more at optimizing the booking process to e.g. ensure that canceled bookings get backfilled automatically to increase the overall booking rate, though even that is usually not a problem and most doctors overbook their appointments to make sure they stay busy during the day (that's why you often have to wait 30-60 minutes here even if you have an appointment scheduled).

martin_a 4y ago

The headline is extremely misleading. It's not about "advertising" for abortions but about _providing information_ on abortions as a doctor.

iforgotpassword 4y ago
That's what advertising is, literally, not in the commercial sense where you blast people on TV etc. to convince them they need your product/service. In the past it wasn't even allowed to advertise on your website that you do abortions, or have more information on it in your waiting room, so patients had to actively ask if you offer it.
ekianjo 4y ago
advertising's prime goal is to raise awareness. If you know that something exists you are much, much more likely to consider it.

dathinab 4y ago

Be aware that "advertisement" here is in the legalese sense. I.e. this is less about "ad" advertisements but more about e.g. doctors having flyers better informing about what is possible/legal in the waiting room and similar. Like before you basically had to "somehow magically know" who could do an abortion as even mentioning it on the doctors (hospitals) website might be counted as advertisement.

singularity2001 4y ago
That makes more sense: billboard advertisement would go too far as it would encourage otherwise unwarranted behavior (similar to smoking : if you see someone cool doing it you might consider it, without any prior motivation)
- Kaze404 4y ago
  If you see someone cool having an abortion you'd intentionally get pregnant to also get one? I don't get it.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    You'd show it as an easily accessible alternative, potentially reducing the strict use of contraceptives. And overall that would have worse consequences than preventing pregnancy in the first place.
    - solar-ice 4y ago
      Can you show any evidence that people knowing they can get an abortion and where, leads to reduced contraception usage? Actually… next time you’re close to sleeping with someone, say “hey, you can just get an abortion, we don’t need to use a condom”. Tell me what she says.
      - viraptor 4y ago
        Evidence, no, that's why I wrote "potentially". This idea is extrapolated from something that already happens though - if people know plan B is easily accessible, they're not as regular with taking a daily pill as they'd be otherwise. Even though in practice that means higher risks. This I heard directly - don't know if there's any study. The whole idea is not about making a conscious, calculated choice. It's about how comfortable you become with certain risk. It's on the same level as: if we start advertising how safe airbags are, would we see the average speed get a tiny increase nationally.

brodo 4y ago

Abortion is legal in Germany the same way weed is legal in the Netherlands: it‘s not. The law is just not enforced. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__218.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__218.html

morelisp 4y ago
It's a little more precise than that. It's illegal but also formally has no penalty for a variety of cases. Ending the "advertising" ban is a great step forward in letting people actually access doctors' services. Legalization seems unlikely, unfortunately, though the news around Dobbs has at least opened up the discussion again.
fabian2k 4y ago
The important part is §218a which declares the situations in which abortion is legal. This is not something like prosecutorial discretion, it's still a matter of law.
- fosefx 4y ago
  English translation: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1964 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st... Most notable: "The pregnant woman does not incur the penalty specified in section 218 if the termination was performed by a physician after counselling (section 219) and no more than 22 weeks have elapsed since conception"
  - sReinwald 4y ago
    > [...] and no more than 22 weeks have elapsed since conception You seem to have made a quite unlucky typo there. It's 12 weeks since conception, not 22. We are not that progressive.
    - piceas 4y ago
      No typo according to the link. The 22 weeks with conditions is correct.

bobthechef 4y ago

[dead]

ekianjo 4y ago

funny you can advertise this in Germany now but still having virtual blood in video games is somewhat controversial.

johannes1234321 4y ago
"advertise" in this context is not about Billboards ("pay one abortion, get a second free!") but about doctors putting information on the procedures and about the fact the offer abortion on flyers and their website. Before this law was changed people seeking and abortion had to ask whether they do such procedures or know some doctor who does.

treffer 4y ago

To clarify... This is at least partially the aftermath of a lawsuite if I recall correctly. There was a case where a doctor listed abortions as one of their offerings on their website, and that was seen as an advertisement. [Citation needed, my memory might fail me here] So "no advertisement" pretty much means "don't tell anyone anywhere beforehand". And that was seen as non-helpful, especially as abortions are legal in Germany.

johannes1234321 4y ago
> And that was seen as non-helpful, especially as abortions are legal in Germany. Nope, the criminal code forbids abortion, but doesn't punish it in some circumstance (within some months of pregnancy, after a counselling session and some time for thinking it over etc.) There are huge debates to make it more legal by turning this around or clearer restricting in criminal code.
- treffer 4y ago
  Hrm, looked it up out of curiosity... §218a lists that it is not a crime under certain circumstances ("Tatbestand des § 218 ist nicht verwirklicht, wenn"), but the heading of that one is "Straflosigkeit", so "no punishment". IANAL but this reads like it is not a crime under the listed conditions. Which is different from no punishment.
solarkraft 4y ago
Yes, that's what brought it back into the spotlight. The parties currently in the government all somewhat ran on the promise of overturning this law as a part of a general modernization (the more conservative party, which is now out, blocked a lot of it).