Abortion Threat in Germany Splits Parliament
A report from Cornelia Kaminski and Alfa-ev.de
Editor’s Note: Most Americans assume abortion is legal throughout most of Europe. In fact, Germany’s Supreme Court ruled many years ago that their post-war constitutional guarantees of human dignity and right to life included unborn children. But in a concession to pr0-abortion efforts, it ruled that while the government cannot legalize abortion . . . neither is it required to punish it, at least in the first trimester. Indeed, it ruled, the government is required to at least offer social and welfare means to encourage women to carry to term, but is not obligated to punish abortions using criminal sanctions.
In short, the practical situation in Germany is that abortion in the first trimester is widely available, but not technically legal.
I would like to share rather important news with you, hoping that you can also share it – maybe inform some journalists, too. We need prayers and pressure.
Two weeks ago, word got out that on Friday, July 11th, our parliament was to vote two very left-leaning judges into our supreme court. According to an agreement, both SPD (social democrats – our liberals) and CDU (Christian democrats) have the right to nominate judges for the supreme court. Two liberal judges are retiring, one conservative judge. On Friday all three posts were to be filled, two by candidates from the left, one by a candidate from the conservatives. The conservative party whip Jens Spahn failed to inform his MPs about the candidates. One of the candidates from the left (Prof Dr Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf) said:
“Human dignity and the protection of life are legally decoupled.” She argues that although the Federal Constitutional Court stated in 1993 that human dignity “already applies to unborn human life”, she herself believes that these two protected rights can be decoupled.
Besides, she said: “The assumption that human dignity applies wherever human life exists is a biologistic-naturalistic fallacy.”
“Whether the embryo and later the foetus are entitled to the protection of the guarantee of human dignity in the Basic Law is in fact very controversial in constitutional law scholarship. In my opinion, there are good reasons why the guarantee of human dignity only applies from birth.”
“And even assuming full protection of human dignity for the embryo/fetus, there are arguments that the guarantee of human dignity would not normally be violated by an abortion.”
“The killing of a human being without degrading circumstances that deny it its subject quality does not violate Article 1 I of the Basic Law.” (Which says: Human dignity is inviolable. Our constitution begins with that sentence for a very good reason. Never again should human life be stripped of its dignity on our soil).
As you may know, abortions are officially still illegal in Germany, but not prosecuted under certain circumstances. The aim of the left is to change this law and make abortions legal in general. Our side argues that this is unconstitutional and refers to past rulings of our supreme court, which are crystal clear. This is why the left is so desperate to have a judge like Brosius-Gersdorf in the Supreme Court.
When challenged by an MP of the Alternative for Germany, a party considered to be on the far right, our chancellor, a Christian democrat himself, made a terrible mistake. She asked: “Can you reconcile it with your conscience to send a judge to the Federal Constitutional Court for whom the killing of an unborn child two minutes before birth is constitutionally unobjectionable?”
To which he simply answered, “Yes”. The Christian-Democratic MPs, and the members of this party (I am one of them) were shell-shocked. All hell broke lose.
Here is the good news
What nobody had expected, but was orchestrated by us, was a storm of resentment that turned into a tornado and swept into our parliament last week. The Christian Democrats, who had initially agreed to vote for the candidates, decided Friday morning to stop the vote – in the very last moment. After years of relentless campaigning for liberal abortion laws, a so-called “Right to have an abortion” in all the legacy media and left-leaning news outlets, this is what the abortion lobby in Germany learned on Friday: You have failed colossally. The people in Germany stand firm with the unborn.
This is our Dobbs moment. Thanks to all who prayed for us in these two weeks. All the time, god is good – god is good, all the time.
Now the bad news, and why I need your help – if at all possible.
The social democrats refuse to nominate a different candidate, the candidate herself refuses to step down. Instead, they want to continue pressuring the Christian Democrats to vote for this person, and try a second vote after the summer break. All judges need two thirds of the votes in the parliament to pass. The liberals expect the extreme left and the also very left green party to vote for her to achieve that majority, but it cannot be achieved without the votes of the Christian Democrats.
What we are facing now
The Libs want to install someone in the Supreme Court who believes that human dignity is violable and can be relativized. They, including the judge, risk a state crisis and the end of the government (which has only been in office for a few months) in order to push through their agenda. They deny the MPs their right to vote according to their conscience, a right that they made use of on Friday – at a great cost. The pressure within the party was gigantic. Now they want to increase that pressure and break the MPs’ backs.
If you read about this crisis in the news, you might find that the vote was stopped because the judge was accused of plagiarism. This was a last-minute idea by a conservative MP who hoped to get also the pro-choice leaning MPs of his party, and the liberals, on board – after all, you can’t have a supreme court judge with a flawed scientific reputation. This was a sham, of course, and was quickly revealed as such. The lefts, the pro-choice lobby, they are fuming with rage.
If you can, please help us get out the news internationally that this crisis had nothing to do with plagiarism, but with the German people’s uprising against a judge who threatens a principle of our nation that every schoolchild knows and understands. For once, even our bishops and catholic lay organisations stepped in.
And I would like to ask you to pray for our conservative MPs, who were very brave, and will need much more courage in the next weeks. And inform conservative journalists about what really happened on Friday in Germany.