Head of German Bishops Conference defends pro-abortion judge from attacks
Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf does not deserve the criticism of the past few days, says the head of the German Bishops' Conference. "A lot went wrong" in the debate.
The Chairman of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing, has defended Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf against the attacks of the past few days. The legal scholar, nominated by the German Socialist Party as a constitutional judge, "doesn't deserve to be damaged like this," Bätzing told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. Brosius-Gersdorf had been harshly criticized, among others, by high-ranking representatives of the Catholic Church for her liberal stance on abortion.
"A lot has gone wrong in this entire debate," Bätzing said when asked whether the church had further fueled the debate. The election of constitutional judges was "not a topic for a culture war." Many people had been damaged as a result.
Regarding Brosius-Gersdorf's stance on abortion, Bätzing said that, on the one hand, it was about the right of self-determination of women who are unintentionally pregnant, but also about protecting the unborn child. In this regard, the current Section 218a, which guarantees immunity from prosecution under certain conditions, was a "wise balance." He considered it unwise to break this line: "Why should one abandon the clear compromise that exists on the abortion issue and thereby potentially risk a social divide?"
Attacks from the Conservative camp
In addition to representatives of the Catholic Church, Brosius-Gersdorf was primarily attacked by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and conservative media. She was called "ultra-left" or "left-wing radical," among other things. The 54-year-old rejected the attacks on her, particularly regarding her stance on abortion, as defamatory and inaccurate.
"I have never advocated for the legalization or decriminalization of abortion up to birth," she said on Tuesday on ZDF. "It is also false that I am said to have said or written that the embryo has no right to life." She described an attack by Bamberg Archbishop Herwig Gössl as "infamous." Gössl had described her nomination as a constitutional judge as a "domestic political scandal" and spoke of an "abyss of intolerance and contempt for humanity."
This is what the judge herself says about her views in a Position Statement.
"Defamatory and unrealistic"
Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf's statement in full
Brosius-Gersdorf is a professor of public law at the University of Potsdam.
A debate has erupted over the SPD's candidate for the position of Federal Constitutional Court judge. A vote in the Bundestag failed for the time being. In a statement, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf criticized the reporting about her in some parts of the media. The constitutional lawyer also outlines her positions, including on abortion law. The letter is available to ntv.de; we publish it in full below.
Brosius-Gersdorf:
1. The reporting in parts of the media about me and my positions in connection with the election as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court was inaccurate and incomplete, unobjective, and non-transparent. It was not fact-based, but rather driven by the goal of preventing the election. Labeling me as "ultra-left" or "left-wing radical" is defamatory and unrealistic. Citing anonymous sources is also unacceptable, especially when that source is a Minister of Justice.
2. Individual state officials must also accept criticism. What reason is there for a member of a state government, especially one in the judiciary, to express themselves anonymously in a debate about the election of a constitutional judge? At a time when politicians are rightly demanding greater protection against verbal attacks and discussing a "digital ban on face coverings," anonymous statements from politically responsible state officials are disconcerting. Participating, even anonymously, in media criticism and even insults of others while simultaneously demanding protection from insults for oneself is a contradiction.
3. A detailed and comprehensive examination of my academic contributions would have shown that the focus of my research is constitutional, social, and educational law, including topics such as the regulation and financing of schools, the safeguarding of municipal public services in Germany, coping with demographic change, the reform of our social security systems, and the digitalization of administration. If one politically categorizes my academic positions in their broadest sense, a picture of the democratic center emerges. One-sided attributions ("ultra-left" and "left-wing radical") lack a factual basis. They are based on a selective and incomplete selection of individual topics and theses, with individual sentences taken out of context to create a distorted picture.
On individual topics:
3.1. The reporting on my position on abortion reform lacked a factual basis. The main accusation in the media is that I deny unborn life the guarantee of human dignity and support abortion up until birth. This is false. Human life is entitled to the fundamental right to life from implantation onwards. I have always advocated this. The statement that I am in favor of legalizing and (as distinct from this) making abortion up until birth impunity is inaccurate and constitutes a slander.
It is true that I pointed out the constitutional dilemma that arises if one grants unborn life the guarantee of human dignity from implantation onwards, just as one grants human beings after birth. Under the prevailing legal doctrine that human dignity cannot be balanced against the fundamental rights of third parties, such as the pregnant woman, abortion would not be permissible under any circumstances. Abortion for medical reasons, where the woman's life or health is at risk, would then also be ruled out. However, the long-standing legal position is that abortion is permissible if medically indicated. My aim and task as a researcher was and is to point out this problem and inconsistencies in existing law, as well as to demonstrate possible solutions for a consistent regulation of abortion. The solution, from a constitutional perspective, can only be that either human dignity is capable of being considered or that it does not apply to unborn life. I have highlighted this necessary need for constitutional discussion without thereby advocating the position that unborn life is without protection. On the contrary:
Even if human dignity only applies to humans from birth, unborn life would not be unprotected. From the moment of implantation, it is entitled to the fundamental right to life, which I have always advocated. The accusation that I advocate abortion up until birth and that I am "critical of life" is false and completely unfounded. My publications on this subject cannot be misunderstood in this way either. The constitutional dogmatic dilemma I have highlighted is presented in an abbreviated form and used to inaccurately insinuate that I do not advocate the fundamental right to life from the moment of implantation.
3.2. The concern and subject of the academic debate on the religious headscarf worn by legal trainees were differences in case law regarding the state's requirement of neutrality. While a headscarf ban for teachers in public schools is said to be constitutionally unlawful, a corresponding ban for legal trainees is said to be permissible in certain courtroom situations. I saw a contradiction here. In both cases, a distinction must be made between the state, to which a requirement of neutrality (prohibition of identification) applies, and civil servants who exercise their fundamental freedom. The state does not identify with the exercise of its employees' fundamental rights. However, this does not mean that a headscarf ban is always unconstitutional. Even if a headscarf ban for public officials cannot be based on the requirement of neutrality for the state, it can, in individual cases, be legitimized by the requirement of moderation for civil servants. Here, too, my position is incorrectly represented.
3.3. It has been reported that I want to undermine electoral principles, particularly equal voting, through parity models for the election of the German Bundestag. It is true that I have examined the legal question of whether the requirement enshrined in the Basic Law to promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men justifies interference with electoral principles. This question is controversial in legal scholarship and has not been clarified by the highest courts.
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