site.btaGovernment Partner Calls for Debate on Abortions in Bulgaria

ESD 16:57:01 23-06-2019
ZH1655ES.105
105 POLITICS - SOCIETY - ABORTION - POLITICIAN

Government Partner Calls for
Debate on Abortions in
Bulgaria


Sofia, June 23 (BTA) - The leader of the nationalist Ataka party, Volen Siderov, calls for a debate on abortions in Bulgaria. "The question is very important. It is discussed in many developed countries but not in Bulgaria. A total of 26,000 abortions are performed in Bulgaria annually, which are 26,000 killings," Siderov said on the national radio, quoted by his party's press office Sunday.

Ataka is one of three parties in the power-sharing United Patriots coalition.

Siderov was adamant that "we should think about whether the Bulgarian people will survive and progress". "At the moment every girl, against a fee, can kill a human life," he said, urging people to think how serious the problem is.

Siderov called on the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to come up with a more robust stand on the issue of abortions.

"If a war were being fought, there would not be as many deaths. This is tantamount to a nihilistic attitude to one's own life, to the demographic development of Bulgaria," Siderov said.

For a long time, Bulgaria has had a pro-choice policy and a woman can choose to have an abortion by the end of the 12th gestational week. Girls under the age of 16 need the permission of both parents to have an abortion.

Bulgaria is a country with one of the highest number of abortions in Europe, according to statistics of the National Public Health Centre quoted by Nova TV last week. A total of 5,600 abortions were performed in just the first quarter of 2019. According to the statistics, more than half of them are done as the mother wishes so, without having a medical condition. LN/ZH