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Despite successful protests, local pro-life movement faces uphill battle in nation with liberal, communist-era laws By Michael Mainville "There really is only one reason," Uchac says after a moment of reflection. "It's that a human being is being killed during an abortion. And once you realize this, and the more you find out about the problem, the more involved you become." The 27-year-old Uchac is president of Pro-Life Czech Republic, the country's leading anti-abortion lobby group. A computer programmer and new father, Uchac devotes most of his spare time to leading the group in an increasingly vocal campaign against abortion, which has been legal here since the height of the Cold War. Pro-Life Czech Republic organized a 600-strong demonstration in downtown Prague in late March and is responsible for a pro-life advertising campaign that saw hundreds of posters go up in trams, metro trains and buses across the country last month. Uchac said the Prague protest was the largest pro-life demonstration ever held nationally and calls the group's advertising campaign a major success, with dozens calling or e-mailing to express support or obtain copies of the poster. It depicts a fetus and carries a slogan that reads, "Help to the mothers, life for the children, and truth for the public." Despite Uchac's optimism, however, few expect the movement will ever move beyond the position it occupies on the fringes of public opinion. Polls show the vast majority of Czechs support the country's abortion laws -- among the most liberal in the world -- and the pro-life movement has little political support. The current law allows women aged 16 and older to obtain abortions on request during the first trimester (12 weeks) of their pregnancies. Women younger than 16 must obtain permission from their parents. Abortions are free if they are performed for health reasons; otherwise they cost between 3,000 and 3,500 Kc. "The pro-life movement has no future in the Czech Republic," said Dr. Radim Uzel, a gynecologist who heads the country's Association for Family Planning and Sex Education. "Public opinion supports abortion without question. ... These activists are not too serious and will not be politically powerful." Like other former communist countries, with the exception of strongly Catholic Poland, the Czech Republic had one of the highest rates of abortions in Europe in the 1990s. For decades following the adoption of a wide-ranging abortion law in 1957, abortion was used as birth control by many Czech women because modern contraceptives were virtually unavailable. The number of legally induced abortions peaked in 1990, immediately after the Velvet Revolution, at about 107,000, or 41.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-49. The Western European average hovers at between 10 and 20 abortions per 1,000 women. But since the political upheaval that ended communism, the abortion rate here has gradually moved closer to Western standards, mostly as a result of the increased availability of contraception. In 1999, about 37,000 legally induced abortions were performed here, a rate of 14.2 per 1,000. Public awareness This gives little comfort to pro-life activists like Uchac, who believes abortions should be illegal except when a woman's life is at risk. "Our goal is to have a legal protection for the human being as of conception, not only when it comes to abortion, but to in-vitro fertilization, genetic manipulation and cloning," he said. Uchac's strategy is to reshape public opinion. He believes most citizens would support limits on abortion if pollsters bothered to ask them the right questions. "If you ask someone whether they are for a complete restriction on abortion, they will most likely say no, because many people say you have to respect the life of the mother if she is in danger. But if you ask them whether they support new restrictions on abortion, you will get a very different answer," he said. The anti-abortion march -- held to coincide with March 25, a day many pro-life groups have declared "Day of the Unborn Child" -- and advertising campaigns were both aimed at changing public opinion, he said. The group spent 200,000 Kc ($5,200) of the money it raised from private donations to put 600 posters in Prague's trams, 50 on the metro, and hundreds more on public transit in cities like Brno, Ostrava and Plzen (Pilsen). "The media and most of the politicians will not accept positive information from our point of view," Uchac said. "So we want to change public opinion. And because politicians depend on votes, that can bring legislative changes." But few politicians have denounced the current law, let alone suggested that it be altered or reversed. Jiri Karas, a member of the Chamber of Deputies with the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), is the exception. Karas is attempting to gather support for an amendment to the abortion law that he wants to present to Parliament in the next year. It would limit abortions to the first eight weeks of a pregnancy and make the agreement of the biological father a condition of the abortion, except in cases of rape. Women younger than 18 would also need parental permission to get an abortion. Karas said he would eventually like to see abortions banned altogether, but believes the amendment is a more palatable proposal. "I am discussing this with other MPs to try and get them to support it," he said. "A few have already said they would, but not enough to get it passed." Karas said he believes the country's tolerant attitude toward abortion is a remnant of communism. "When the law was adopted by the communists in 1957, the majority of people were against abortion," he said. "But the law changed the morality in our country. Now we believe the morality must change the law." Activists like Uchac and Karas face an uphill battle. Recent polls indicate that about 65 percent of Czechs support a woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion, including almost 40 percent of respondents who classified themselves religiously as "believers." "The opinions of people like Jiri Karas are simply not shared by a lot of people. Not even all the Christian Democrats support a move in that direction," Uzel said. Jana Volfova, an MP with the ruling Social Democrats (CSSD) and chair of the party's women's caucus, agreed there's little chance the pro-life movement will force change soon. "For now, nothing can make the law change, I am convinced of it," Volfova said. But that doesn't mean a change in the abortion law in the near future is impossible. National elections are scheduled for next year and, to date, the Quad Coalition of parties, a center-right grouping that includes the KDU-CSL, has been leading in the polls. That gives Karas hope that his efforts to amend, and eventually abolish, the abortion law may succeed. "I know that this is a long-term battle," he said. "But maybe the MPs of the next government will be more willing to listen." -- Jana Donovan contributed to this report. Michael Mainville's e-mail address is mmainville@praguepost.cz |
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