Was It Really ‘To No Avail’? The Legislative Deliberations on Underage Girls’ Access to Abortion in Spain

Having outlined a legisprudential approach to evaluating legislative debates in the previous chapter, I will now attempt to exemplify how it might work on the ground by reviewing the legislative deliberations on underage girls’ access to abortion held in the Spanish Parliament in 2015—which resulted in the passage of the Organic Law 11/2015 to strengthen the protection for minors facing a voluntary termination of pregnancy. The outcome of this tentative review is ambivalent. On the one hand, in terms of extent (scope and depth) and structure, the argumentation that emerged from these debates may be said to meet reasonable standards of legislative justification. On the other hand, however, the rationale underpinning the bill, as defended by its proponents, shows serious shortcomings at the levels of dialectics and of content plausibility, particularly with regard to the prospects of legislative impact and to legislative fact-finding. Still, despite such flaws, the regulation of underage girls’ access to abortion turns out to offer a good example for the justificatory potential of legislative debates in parliament.