General Overview

The area of sexual and reproductive rights in Spain shows a positive balance in terms of executive measures and Constitutional Court rulings, contrasted with implementation deficits that affect the effective exercise of those rights across much of the territory. The Sánchez government accumulated advances during the period in LGBTIQ+ rights, in protection against gender-based violence, and in safeguarding the right to abortion. At the same time, the normative violations documented by human rights organizations reveal that the progressive agenda of the central executive encounters resistance in regional administrations and health institutions.

The Right to Abortion and LGBTIQ+ Rights

In September 2024, the Constitutional Court dismissed the unconstitutionality appeals filed by the PP and Vox against the 2023 Abortion Law reform, securing the right of 16- and 17-year-olds to have abortions without parental permission and eliminating the mandatory reflection period. This ruling closed a multi-year legal battle and consolidated a normative framework that the right-wing opposition had sought to reverse. In June 2024, the government filed unconstitutionality appeals against reforms to the Trans and LGBTI laws of the Community of Madrid, challenging articles involving conversion therapies, the pathologization of trans minors, and the exclusion of LGBTI organizations as interested parties in criminal or administrative sanctioning proceedings. In September 2024, Royal Decree 1026/2024 came into force, stipulating that companies with more than 50 employees must have protocols against LGBTI discrimination.

Protection Against Gender-Based Violence: Normative Advances and Implementation Gaps

In July 2024, Spain voted in favor of Resolution A/HRC/56/L.25/Rev.1 on the elimination of discrimination against women and girls at the UN Human Rights Council. In February 2025, the government renewed the State Pact against gender-based violence with a larger budget for 24-hour crisis centers for victims of sexual violence. In March 2025, the Council of Ministers approved the draft Organic Law on measures regarding vicarious violence — violence exercised against children to harm their mother — criminalizing it as an autonomous offense with sentences of six months to three years in prison.

But beyond the progressive character of the law itself, public statements, and budget allocations to sustain public policies, effective access to rights was at times obstructed. In December 2024, an Amnesty International report noted that only five autonomous communities had implemented the conscientious objector registry for abortion provision — a mechanism included in the 2023 reform which, in the absence of such a registry, allows undeclared conscientious objection to obstruct access to abortion in the public health system in practice. The contextual fact accompanying this finding — that the majority of abortions in Spain take place in private institutions — points to a structural failing of the public health system in guaranteeing this right effectively.