Health minister planning shake-up of ‘ridiculously outdated’ abortion rules

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz intends to spearhead major reforms to the country’s abortion policies with the aim of making it easier for women to end a pregnancy, he told the Ynet news site on Wednesday.

Under current laws, the right to an abortion is only granted by three-member pregnancy termination committees held in the country’s hospitals.

Horowitz plans to end a decades-old policy according to which the committees are told to attempt to persuade applicants not to have an abortion.

Lawmakers from his party will also introduce new legislation that will do away with the need to get committee permission for abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

In the coming months, the Health Ministry is expected to also introduce a series of measures making access to abortion via the committees easier by removing some of the existing barriers, including invasive questioning of the motives for termination, according to the Ynet report. READ MORE