Grußwort von Prof. Dr. Gabriele Kaczmarczyk

Ärztin (Anästhesiologie), Gastprofessorin an der Charité Berlin und Frauenbeauftragte der Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Ihr wurde 2010 das Bundesverdienstkreuz verliehen.

I am professor Kaczmarczyk from Berlin and I am here to speak for the Netzwerk Frauengesundheit Berlin (a womens health network) and the Arbeitskreis Frauengesundheit, a Germany-wide association for Womens’ Health.

I would like to let our English-speaking friends know that we are demonstrating here today against any efforts, by the government or anyone else (for example the people with the white crosses over here) to restrict women control over their reproductive choices by making abortion illegal or inaccessible.

The family planning of women and men must be their own free decision without any type of discrimination. Making abortion illegal will never stop women from having abortion—this is a historical fact. About 20 million unsafe abortions are performed annually, the major part in developing countries with about 50.000 dead women and millions of servere health injuries.

The WHO (World Health Organization) emphasizes the legalization of abortion, the training of medical personal and the easy access to reproductive health services. This is because the WHO knows and declares: „Women have always had abortions and will always continue to do so, irrespective of prevailing laws, religious proscriptions or social norms.“

Making abortion illegal will only stop women from having safe abortions.

The people who call themselves „life protectors“, who want to deny women access to safe, legal abortion, have never visited the hospital wards of countries in which abortion is illegal … wards full of women dying from back alley abortions.

Today, worldwide, 8 women die each hour from unsafe, illegal abortions. Many of these  women are dying because of the propaganda campaign of the people calling themselves „life protectors“ and their followers who have organized this unbelievable demonstration today with these white crosses. In the USA for example these so-called „life protectors“ did not hesitate to kill doctors and nurses who offered women safe abortion services.

These life protection people better should fight for health education, access to family planning und access to effective contraception in order to reduce the incidence of unsafe abortion from which about 50 000 women die each year. These „life protection“ people better should care of millions of children born worldwide  to die from starvation, thirst and dehydration.

In Germany we know from our terrible history how a government can influence the decisions of women and men for their parenthood planning: during the Nationalsocialism German women were not allowed to have an abortion, they were punished whereas Jewish women, or women in prisons have been forced to have an abortion… so the government denied the sexual rights of women.

Now we demand – and this is not the first time – the abrogation of the § 218 and the guarantee of sexual self-determination as a basic human right – for everybody. Thank you!

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