CONSENSUANDO EL DISENSO: AUTODETERMINACIÓN REPRODUCTIVA Y CIUDADANÍA DEMOCRÁTICA.

In continental Europe, legal discourses around abortion have traditionally been loaded with meta-legal considerations. The increasing transition from a system based on causes of depenalisation to a time-frame system has lightened these considerations, through the recognition of abortion as a legal right. Yet this has not been accompanied by the recognition of a constitutional right to reproductive self-determination, as seminal Roe v. Wade did in the United States in 1973. The Spanish Constitutional Court’s Decision 44/2023 has recognised this right. It has done so one year after Roe was overruled by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaving the regulation of abortion in the hands of states as part of their democratic mandate. Against this, Spanish Constitutional Decision 44/2023 couches access to abortion within the right to democratic self-determination in matters of intimate citizenship, thus creating a space where democratic coexistence can rely on an agreement to disagree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]