Health Minister Wants to Simplify the Abortion Process in the Country

In recent news, the Supreme Court in the state of Washington heard oral arguments on what is being claimed to be the most important abortion case to be taken to courts in the last few decades. On this note, the health minister in the State of Israel took to expressing the plans he has devised to simplify the abortion process in the country. In Nitzan Horowitz’s opinion, this particular process in the country is a chauvinistic one. He went on to add that only women should have the rights to their own bodies and therefore, be able to make decisions related to it. 

He continued that any decision made regarding a medical procedure, such as one of whether to get an abortion or not, should be up to the woman considering it. In his words, it is immoral to impose an unwanted pregnancy on a woman. It was further revealed that Horowitz, who heads the left-wing of the Meretz Party, is hoping to allow women to be able to terminate their pregnancies, given that they make this decision within the first 12 weeks. Moreover, he wants to ensure that they do not have to ask for approval from a committee, which is currently required by law in the Jewish state. On the one hand, the State of Israel has made abortions legal in a handful of cases. 

But women wanting to get their pregnancy aborted are required to present ‘valid’ reasons in front of a committee of three people before they can go ahead and put an end to it. The committee has previously approved various abortions for women who are under the age of 18 and over the age of 40.  In addition, the people in charge of making this decision have also allowed abortions when it was believed that the baby would be born with birth defects, when the pregnancy was a result of incest or rape, when the woman was unmarried, or when the pregnancy could potentially put the woman’s life in danger and/or cause harm to her physical and mental health. 

The Health Ministry also announced that it is planning on updating the application form that has been designed for abortions. No changes have been made in it since the year 1977 and the relevant officials are planning on changing that. Furthermore, the Ministry will be studying the hospitals and medical centers which receive the highest number of applications to address the issue of lengthy waiting times. This is another problem that women have to suffer through in the country when looking for abortions. Therefore, the responsibility of some women will be transferred to health-clinics, especially when drug-induced procedures are to be performed in the first term. 

However, it is a given that any changes to be made to the committee requirements are likely to face opposition and take longer. This is because it requires approval from the Knesset, which has a handful of conservative parties that are currently a part of the governing coalition.