Dear Sol, a controversial topic everywhere. Even in this country. In Germany, abortion is a punishable offence. For the mothers and the doctors performing the procedure. However, no sanctions are imposed if a woman has undergone compulsory counselling. There are various associations and institutions that provide this counselling; it must be open-ended. If the woman still wishes to terminate the pregnancy afterwards, she can do so with impunity.

There have long been attempts to legalise abortions. They fail because of conservative and church interventions.

I am of the opinion that only a woman alone can and may decide what happens to an embryo in her womb. After all, it is her womb. Not that of her partner and certainly not that of her family. What authority should they have to decide?

Every woman needs the right to decide freely whether to carry her pregnancy to term or terminate it. All women need free access to contraceptives in advance. And there needs to be well-trained doctors for this: an interruption is still not part of the training of a gynaecologist or surgeon!

For myself, I decided very early on that an abortion was out of the question. I am not a believer; my reasons are more natualist. I wish every woman the same right to free and sole decision and respect these.