Spain | The new registry of stillborn babies creates debate

Babies born without life -who have had a gestation period of more than six months- must be registered and may have a name in the Spanish civil registry. Some feminist groups think that this law will not help overcome grief.

In the 31st week of pregnancy, Cora’s heart, the baby Noelia Sánchez was expecting, stopped beating.

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They told her that it was a sudden intrauterine death, without knowing the specific reason. After the news, the duel was very painful.

“I was very silenced by those around me. They loved me, but they did not understand it. Nobody thought of Cora as my daughter, for them it was an abortion,” Sánchez told Euronews.

“They told me that I could not register her in the civil registry because she was stillborn and her name could not be registered.”

This type of situation is about to change after the approval of a new law, following the demands of the associations that work with women who have lost their babies.

From now on, stillborn babies – who have had a gestation period of more than six months – must be registered, and may have a name on file with the civil registry. For this, the country has created a new registry of “declaration of babies born without life”.

Before this law, babies who died after the sixth month of pregnancy were registered in the so-called “File of Abortionist Babies”, without the possibility of being named or identifying both parents.

“It is a great achievement for the families. I had to register my daughter as a female fetus of Noelia Sánchez, and it was very painful. It is not a fetus, it is my daughter. This measure has no legal effect, but it gives emotional peace”, Sanchez says.

“One of the things that hurt me the most was that they didn’t recognize me as a mother, when I felt like one. My daughter ended up in the trash. For them it was surgical waste, and that was horrible.”

“The validation of the baby’s name and surname is also a validation of mourning,” he adds.

It was last February when, after years of struggle, the Congress of Deputies approved the change in the law of the Socialist Party, with the votes of all the political groups except the far-right Vox party.

A “scandalous” step back according to various feminist groups

Several feminist organizations have also expressed concern that, although the new law does not directly conflict with the current right to abortion, it is a first step towards recognizing the historical claims of anti-abortion groups.

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“It is the first step towards the recognition of the fetus as a person. It is a frontal attack on the right of women to abortion, because today it can be registered at six months of pregnancy, but tomorrow it could only be at three months and the following week It could be a week,” Núria González, a lawyer specializing in human rights and bioethics, told Euronews.

“The law is very clear: a person is a baby who is born alive and leaves the mother’s womb,” he adds.

The change in the law does not contradict the current right to abortion, which allows it up to the 22nd week of gestation, since the amendment establishes that only six-month-old stillborn babies can be registered.

But for feminist groups, giving her an identity is equating her death to that of a human being.

However, statistics show that one in four pregnancies does not result in a live birth, and families say they feel that giving their children a name gives them recognition.

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“It is not a step back. With this law, nobody is going to force you to put your name and surname, it is a free choice,” says Sánchez.

“For me, the most important thing is that all families can be calm. It seems an aberration to me that they deny us a name for our son when we need it,” he adds.

Feminist organizations, however, say that putting a name does not help families overcome their grief.

“What we need is psychological attention and that these women have the right to maternity leave, just like the mother of a baby born alive, so that they can grieve in peace,” says the lawyer.

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