Emerging Topics in Spanish Bioethics: Debates and Controversies on Abortion at the Crossroads of Gender and Disability

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to update the state of art of Bioethics in Spain. The retirement of the reform on the Law on Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy that banned the abortion based on the grounds of congenital defects has been analyzed in order to reflect about the constitutive tension between civic ethics and catholic confessional ethics that has been a constant trait in the origin and the developments of the discipline. The article discusses how the debate about the case of congenital anomaly has derived in an artificial conflict between the Disability Rights Movement "“resignified as functional diversity- and feminism. The conundrum between Disability Rights and reproductive rights calls for intersectionality in order to rethink autonomy and justice in the bioethics´ arena. Our view emphasizes the intersection between gender and disability.