Hungary Moves to Ease Abortion Rules and Protect Women from Violence
Hungary’s new government under Prime Minister Peter Magyar plans to reverse several measures associated with the conservative policies of former Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The most prominent change would scrap the 2022 “heartbeat regulation,” which requires women seeking abortions to hear evidence of fetal life, commonly understood as the fetus’s heartbeat, before proceeding. The rule has been condemned by doctors and women’s rights groups as cruel and humiliating, and Magyar says it raised serious bioethical questions without reducing the number of abortions.
Hungarian law generally permits abortions up to 12 weeks, or up to 24 weeks in cases of severe developmental abnormalities. Under the proposed reforms, emergency contraceptive pills would also become available without a prescription, removing an additional barrier to time-sensitive care.
The government further intends to amend the criminal code to protect women more effectively, including by criminalizing the misuse of intimate images and improving the treatment of domestic-violence victims during criminal proceedings. Hungary also plans to ratify the Istanbul Convention, which came into force in 2014 and requires, among other measures, that rape be defined around the absence of freely given consent. Orban’s government had opposed the treaty, describing it as promoting “gender ideology.” Hungary would join most EU members in ratifying it; Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia are the only other EU countries that have not yet done so.
Continue in the app — vote & join in ➔