UPDATE: The CDU has postponed the election of the new judges to Germany’s constitutional court until after the summer break, after the party faced heavy backlash due to the nomination of far-left candidate Brosius-Gersdorf.
BERLIN (LifeSiteNews) — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has sparked outrage among broad segments of the public for his support of a radical pro-abortion candidate for Germany’s constitutional court.
During a time of questioning in the Bundestag (German Parliament) on July 9, Beatrix von Storch, an MP for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), asked Merz if he could “reconcile it with his conscience” to vote for the judge who thinks that the unborn have no human dignity.
“Ms Brosius-Gersdorf said that a child who is 9 months old does not have human dignity two minutes before birth. Can you reconcile with your conscience to vote for this woman, knowing that she will likely vote on the abolition of Paragraph 218 [law criminalizing abortion]?” Von Storch asked.
“I would be happy to discuss the scope and reach of Article 1, sentence 1 of our Basic Law [on human dignity] with you, Ms. von Storch, on another occasion. But my simple answer to the question you have asked here is: yes,” Merz replied.
The chancellor’s response sparked outrage among pro-lifers, conservatives, and wide segments of the German public. Merz is the head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has historically been known to defend unborn life, family, and traditional Christian values.
“Thanks to Friedrich Merz for his clear, unambiguous answer to my question,” von Storch wrote in a post on X. “If there is no revolt in the CDU/CSU now, the party is morally finished and should finally remove the C from its name.”
The CDU is currently in coalition with the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), and both parties have nominated several candidates to fill positions at the constitutional court. To be elected, the candidates need a two-thirds majority of the MPs. One of the nominees by the SPD is law professor Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, who is radically pro-abortion and has spoken out in favor of a general COVID shot mandate, as well as banning the conservative AfD.
Brosius-Gersdorf was part of a commission appointed by the prior left-wing “Traffic Light coalition” led by the SPD that concluded in 2023 that legalizing abortion is not only legally possible but even necessary. Currently, abortion is still a crime in Germany; however, doctors and women have impunity in the first three months of pregnancy. The Traffic Light government pushed for decriminalization of abortion in the first three months of pregnancy but did not get to vote on it before the coalition fell apart.
In a legal opinion from 2020, Brosius-Gersdorf argued that the ban on advertising for abortions was “unconstitutional.” The Traffic Light coalition later abolished the advertising ban.
READ: Germany ends abortion advertising ban on same day US Supreme Court overturns Roe
During a hearing regarding the decriminalization of abortion in the first three months of pregnancy in February, Brosius-Gersdorf said: “The fact that the draft law makes abortion legal in the early stages of pregnancy is in line with the Basic Law [German constitution].”
While she acknowledged that the embryo had a certain right to life, she added that “When compared and weighed against the fundamental rights of the pregnant woman, the embryo’s right to life in the early stages of pregnancy takes a back seat.”
She claimed that human dignity only applies to people after birth: “Whether the embryo and later the fetus are entitled to the protection of the guarantee of human dignity under the Basic Law is indeed highly controversial in constitutional law. In my opinion, there are good reasons why the guarantee of human dignity only applies from birth.”
In an article for the Christian outlet Corrigenda, Lukas Steinwandter and Christian Rudolf wrote about Borsius-Gersdorf that “she has certainly established herself as a cold technocrat of power.”
Pro-lifers mobilize against far-left candidate
Pro-lifers have sent out a call to protest the potential election of the radical pro-abortion judge, scheduled to take place on July 11. The pro-life organization “Aktion Lebensrecht für Alle” (ALfA) organized a demonstration in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin on Friday morning.
The leader of Christian Democrats for Life (CDL), Susanne Wenzel, criticized Merz and called on the CDU to prevent the election of Brosius-Gersdorf: “Someone who does not want to recognize the human dignity of children before birth is, in the view of the CDL, unacceptable as a judge or even future president of the Federal Constitutional Court. If the CDU were to allow this candidacy, it would be contributing to the abolition of the unrestricted right to life of children before birth.”
A petition by CitizenGO against Brosius-Gersdorf has reached over 121,000 signatures so far. According to the German pro-life organization “1000plus,” more than 13,000 emails have been sent to MPs from the CDU, calling on them not to vote for the pro-abortion candidate.
The Catholic bishops Rudolf Voderholzer and Stefan Oster condemned the nomination of Brosius-Gersdorf in a joint statement, saying that those who hold the view “that the embryo or fetus in the womb has no dignity and only a lesser right to life than a human being after birth” are carrying out “a radical attack on the foundations of our constitution.”
It remains to be seen if the intense backlash from the CDU’s own voter base will prompt MPs to vote against the radical pro-abortion candidate and risk a larger conflict with their coalition partner over it.