17 Mar THE (UN)BEARABLE WAIT
THE (UN)BEARABLE WAIT
Mandatory waiting periods are, according to the World Health Organisation, a hurdle for women to access safe abortions. Nevertheless, 12 EU member states require some form of mandatory waiting time period between the date on which an abortion is first requested and the date on which the actual procedure can take place. In Belgium, the waiting period is six days. Belgium’s abortion law has not been updated since its creation in 1990. Political parties are discussing to change it in three ways: to entirely remove termination of pregnancy from the criminal law, to extend the legal time for abortion from 12 to 18 weeks of pregnancy and to cut the mandatory waiting period from six to two days. With this project, I want to switch focus from the political debate to how women themselves experience the mandatory waiting period. I have met 12 Belgian women who share their thoughts on the six days of waiting.