\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he first person Maria* called when she found out she was pregnant was her doctor. The second person was a lawyer. The single mother of one was in shock, and considering terminating the pregnancy. But she first had to make sure that she wasn\u2019t about to do something illegal, because all she knew was that abortions were forbidden where she lived. \u201cOn top of the emotional mountain that was already there, I also had to deal with this,\u201d Maria told me.<\/p>\n She also knew she wouldn\u2019t get any information about abortions in her own country \u2013 that\u2019s illegal too. After making her decision, she drove to a clinic across the border. It was a stressful, if short, 45-minute drive, at the end of which another hurdle was waiting: \u201cOh, you\u2019re from Liechtenstein?\u201d the receptionist said, according to Maria. \u201cThen you have to pay immediately \u2013 680 Swiss francs (\u00a3620) please.\u201d She was taken aback and asked: \u201cWhat if I can\u2019t pay that right now?\u201d The receptionist replied: \u201cThen you\u2019ll have to come back tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Liechtenstein has one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. This is probably not something you know about my \u201cmicro-state\u201d \u2013 you might think of its banks, of Alpine scenery and castles fit for a Netflix romance. But in between them live real people with real lives, and every year, an estimated 40 women who wish to terminate their pregnancy on their own terms cannot do so in their country.<\/p>\n But if you ask Liechtenstein\u2019s regent, Hereditary Prince Alois, our prime minister, or random people on the street, many will tell you the same thing: there is no problem at all. Since 2015, women are legally permitted to have an abortion outside the country, and the external border is never more than a 15-minute drive away. And anyway, it is allowed if the woman was raped or if her health is at risk, so what more could you ask for?<\/p>\n What I, and others who are part of a new people\u2019s initiative are simply asking for is what is already standard in most European countries: decriminalisation of abortion up to 12 weeks, repeal of the national ban on information about abortions, and for the procedure to be covered by health insurance. A recent poll shows that 62% of voters would be in favour of it if a vote were held. It should be a done deal. But no matter what the people say: the hereditary prince has already announced that he would veto any change in the law, long before a single vote has been cast.<\/p>\n Liechtenstein is not your typical European monarchy, and the prince\u2019s power is anything but ceremonial. Alois can veto any bill, dismiss the government or individual ministers, appoint judges, and propose changes to the law. He usually exercises this power with restraint, and has never actually used his veto. He has only threatened to use it once, in 2011, which was the last time a popular initiative tried to legalise abortion. With the prince\u2019s veto looming over the vote, it was rendered effectively pointless, leading to a historically low turnout, and a 52% vote against.<\/p>\n A national debate over the monarchy\u2019s role ensued, culminating in a vote in which more than 76% chose to preserve the prince\u2019s veto power. This happened though after Alois and his father, Prince Hans-Adam II, had threatened to leave the country if the vote didn\u2019t go in their favour \u2013 a move that would have plunged our nation into a severe crisis.<\/p>\n This is why it continues to be the case that speaking out in favour of legalising abortion is regarded as speaking out against the monarchy.<\/p>\n Alois says that the present laws are there to protect unborn life, even though he acknowledges that the abortion ban doesn\u2019t actually prevent any abortions. And our prime minister, Brigitte Haas, says she\u2019s pragmatic and doesn\u2019t see a problem with sending women across the border. I have one question: have they ever spoken to a single woman who had to cross the border for an abortion? Because if they had, they would know that the abortion ban is indeed harming those affected in several ways.<\/p>\n Since 2022, I\u2019ve conducted more than a dozen interviews with women from Liechtenstein who had to seek abortion care outside the country. Their stories have several things in common.<\/p>\n Just like Maria, Liechtensteiners who seek abortion care are completely on their own. A ban on information \u2013 the last one of its kind in Europe \u2013 prevents local groups and professionals from giving advice about procedures and where to go. Pressured for time by the 12-week limit for abortions in Switzerland and Austria, they have to make phone call after phone call to find the right clinic, for which they have to pay in advance, up to 2,500 Swiss francs (\u00a32,360). They fear legal consequences, because many don\u2019t realise that under Liechtenstein\u2019s law only doctors are criminally liable. And they feel stigmatised by a law telling them to deal with their problems elsewhere. As Maria puts it: \u201cYou feel so awful when you want to do it, because it\u2019s so taboo in this country. You feel like you\u2019re a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n Alois\u2019s veto announcement may have been intended to discourage people from signing the initiative or to demotivate us campaigners. The opposite has happened: many people felt even more motivated to sign, and in a country of about 41,000 people (only around 21,000 with voting rights), we received 4,970 signatures, the second-largest tally of signatories for a popular initiative in the country\u2019s history \u2013 equivalent to 10.5m signatures in the UK or 13.8m in Germany.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to This is Europe<\/span><\/p>\n The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n A few weeks ago I went collecting some of those signatures in the streets of Vaduz. A dad with his two kids told me he had already signed, and his young daughter asked what we were doing. I said we were collecting signatures for a cause, and if we collected enough of them, all the people in the country could vote on it. Her father added: \u201cWell, one person has already cast his vote.\u201d<\/p>\n There is only one man we have to convince. We hope a very clear vote might do the trick.<\/p>\n *Maria\u2019s name was changed to protect her privacy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first person Maria* called when she found out she was pregnant was her doctor. The second person was a lawyer. The single mother of one was in shock, and considering terminating the pregnancy. But she first had to make sure that she wasn\u2019t about to do something illegal, because all she knew was that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[5457,25123,2091,25122,4098,25120,25121,12312,5872],"class_list":{"0":"post-51595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-alvarezhummel","10":"tag-archaic","11":"tag-gabriella","12":"tag-laws","13":"tag-liechtensteins","14":"tag-modernised","15":"tag-prince","16":"tag-standing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}