The Assembly of Macedonia has adopted a law which severely restricts abortion after 10 weeks and places a number of humiliating administrative burdens on women seeking an abortion. An article in English which describes the situation can be found here and in Macedonian here.

Under the proposed changes, women seeking an abortion beyond the tenth week of pregnancy will have to file requests for abortions to the Health Ministry and will have to affirm that they attended counselling, informed the partner or spouse of their intention to abort and met a gynaecologist.

The process of passing this law was not exactly a democratic one, it only took 2 weeks from the initial draft to adoption of the law. There has been no consultation with the civil society and the opposition parties were absent from the debate and vote. Macedonia is a candidate country to enter the EU with negotiations for accession having started in 2012.