Slovak parliamentarians have rejected legislation, the first of its kind in the European Union, requiring women seeking abortions to see images and hear the heartbeat of their unborn child first via ultrasound. This was despite its backing from the country’s influential Catholic Church.
The bill, an amendment to Slovakia’s Healthcare Act, was tabled by three female MPs from the Slovak National Party (a participant in the ruling coalition), and would also have banned abortion advertising and obliged doctors to notify unwilling mothers of available state support, as well as doubling the mandatory waiting period from two to four days and providing sickness benefit for women wishing to conceal their pregnancies.
