by requiring payment for prescription medicines. The resulting scenario is familiar to any Spanish citizen over the age of 50. In all of the above examples, Spain has seen it before. Under Franco there was neither a national health service nor social security, abortion was illegal, and all teaching programmes and the selection of teachers were under Government and the Church's strict control. A woman's place was firmly in the home. It is only 34 years since Spain became a constitutional democracy (December 1978), a form of government which is beginning to look increasingly fragile. Spain's conservative right is taking the opportunity of being in power at a time of economic and financial crisis to revive its historic determination to suppress women's reproductive rights, putting the clock back nearly 30 years, when abortion was first decriminalised. A law passed in 1985 by the then Socialist government legalised abortion for the first time under three major conditions: to preserve the physical and mental health of the mother; if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest; if the foetus was likely to suffer mental or physical abnormalities at birth. There were various restrictions as to time limits and the necessity for doctors' agreement, and young women under the age of 18 needed parental permission. It was very restrictive compared with many other European countries at the time but a major break through for women in Spain. In 2010, stimulated by the European proposals on abortion laws in 2008, the Socialist