Gallardón resigns and quits politics as abortion law scrapped
Thursday, September 25, 2014 @ 10:35 AM
MINISTER of justice Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón has resigned after president Mariano Rajoy told him the abortion law reform was not going to go ahead.
He says this will be the end of his life in politics after 30 years at the front line, since he will also give up his seat in Parliament on the PP.
“I've always said this would be my last political role, and I've come to the end of a fascinating chapter in my life which has given me far more than I've given it,” the minister confessed.
“I've had the chance to try to transform the current situation, but was unable to make it reality, so my time in politics has now run out.”
Former mayor of Madrid, Ruiz-Gallardón is the first of Rajoy's PP government to leave his post, not counting ex-agricultural minister Miguel Arias-Cañete whom the president named as MEP for the party.
He criticised the decision to scrap the draft reform, stressing that the PP government had taken on a 'firm commitment' to going ahead with it when they came into power.
“That's what the PP's voters understood would happen,” says Ruiz-Gallardón.
'Retrograde' legislation 'more restrictive than 29 years ago'
Ruiz-Gallardón wanted block the right to have an abortion except in the first 12 weeks where the pregnancy was the result of a rape, or up to 22 weeks where the mother's life or health were in grave danger.
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