Germany ending ‘untenable’ ban on advertising abortions

By GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s justice minister has launched a drive to remove from the country’s criminal code a ban on doctors “advertising” abortion services, a provision that he says is untenable. The move is the first of several liberal social policies planned by new Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party, now in opposition, had defended the paragraph that bans advertising abortions. It carries a fine or prison sentence of up to two years. Under a compromise in 2019, Merkel’s government left the ban formally in place but allowed doctors and hospitals for the first time to say on their websites that they perform abortions. They were not, however, allowed to give more detailed information.