Between Law and Praxis: Abortion in Israel

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the laws and politics on abortion in Israel. In this abortion is penalized but, in practice, almost one hundred per cent of requests for interrupting pregnancy are approved. In order to analyze this imbalance between laws and practices I examine, on one hand, the regulation on abortion in such country, linked to religious and cultural factors. On other hand, I check the functioning and some competences of the committees for abortion in Israel, bodies designed to that goal. I conclude that such imbalance between law and praxis, far from being a pragmatic solution to the controversy on abortion, might be a source of confusion and intromission into the privacy of Israeli women: confusion because they have not normative frameworks well defined; intromission into her privacy because they get the approval just in exchange of exposing very intimate details on her sexual life.