State Family Planning Federation (FPFE): solidarity request

13 June, 2016

 

RHM signed the public statement submitted to the Home Affairs Ministry of Spain by the the State Family Planning Federation to be reinstated as a public utility.

“The Ministry of the Interior of the Spanish government has revoked the declaration of public utility of the State Family Planning Federation (FPFE) upon the request, using moral arguments, of an ultra-conservative Catholic association. This political act adds to the harassment that the FPFE has been subjected to for many months because of our defence of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The FPFE has worked for decades with various agencies, carrying out training activities, providing advice and information on family planning and sexual and reproductive health, and giving particular attention to young people, immigrants and those with intellectual disabilities in a situation of vulnerability. During its almost 30 years of existence, the FPFE has maintained an unswerving commitment to sex education and access to safe and effective contraceptive methods and strategies for prevention of unwanted pregnancies. Our young people’s centres for Contraception and Sexuality (CJAS) are known for their good practices and play a complementary role to public health resources.

These are all activities of public value, as the Ministry of the Interior itself recognized, after a thorough examination of our work, just one month before they suddenly decided to revoke the “declaration of public value”.

We denounce the fact that certain religious beliefs are becoming an instrument to determine government policy. Family planning, sex education and abortion are legal in Spain and are regulated and accepted as the norm in our society. They must therefore not become a basis for criminalization or actions such as this that endanger the existence of the civil society organizations like FPFE that defend them. Religion cannot be placed above public health or human rights.

We therefore demand that the government reinstate the declaration of public utility of the FPFE, in recognition of our role as a civil society organization working for human rights and in particular for the rights of women.”