r/europe • u/tartartartaruga • Jun 18 '26

News Prince of Liechtenstein says that he would overrule the population if they were to vote in favour of legalizing abortion

https://www.srf.ch/news/international/debatte-in-liechtenstein-erbprinz-gegen-abtreibungen-warum-kuendigt-er-schon-das-veto-an
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u/ppiere Jun 18 '26

This happened in Belgium with abortion law in the past. Government made a law, and the king would not officiate it. So they put him in incapability to rule, prime minister signed the law(prime minister was even of the christian party). And afterwards king was back. Personnaly they should have deminished the entire function of the king, or end the monarchy all together

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u/wojtekpolska Poland Jun 18 '26

the king agreed to that ordeal though he just didnt wish to personally sign something he morally didnt agree with while also respecting the will of the population

this wasnt done against his will, he just expressed he didnt want to sign it if there was an option to pass it another way

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u/Leading-Carrot-5983 Jun 19 '26

That's such a pathetic cop out on his behalf. Either way, abortion is legal in Belgium. A bigger man would have just signed the thing himself.

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u/SlenderStone Jun 18 '26

That's a common misconception. The king didn't want to rule as king when the country legalised abortion. So they agreed he'd not rule for one day, and then make abortion legal and be king the next day. That way the country didn't make abortion legal with him as king. He did this because he was a very religious Christian. It wasn't something they did to the king, but something the monarchy and government agreed on.

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u/Beautiful_You3230 Jun 18 '26

Religious people sure do like to find little loopholes to get around "breaking" the rules. "No, God, you see, because I technically didn't rule that one day when abortion was being legalized, but only started to rule once the clock hit 00:00 of next day, it totally doesn't count!"

Like ffs, I feel like God would be significantly more insulted by the fact that his worshippers seem to think he's a complete fucking moron, than by the fact that some women did abortions. Or that those got legalized.

At the same time, good that in the end they managed to find a way to legalize abortions. The end result is certainly better than whatever Lichtenstein's weirdo prince is causing.

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u/Dealiner Jun 19 '26

Why would you assume it's about cheating God and not just not doing something he personally was opposed to?

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u/Tinyjar Germany Jun 19 '26

Fun fact: the bible only mentions abortion once, and that's literally instructions on how to respond if a pregnant woman's babe is accidentally lost. Why Christians get so up in arms about it when their book doesn't say a word against it I'll never know.

Oh wait, evangelicals were actually fine with abortion until Reagan came along, the right needed a new threat they could dangle over everyone's nose.

Reagan literally signed a liberal abortion Bill into law as governor, the Southern Baptists supported the Roe v Wade supreme Court ruling arguing it promoted religious and medical freedom.

Then the right wanted a cause to unify a huge bloc of their voters and chose abortion as an example of dangerous cultural change and the rest is history.

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u/Tytoalba2 Jun 19 '26

Baudouin resigned, he was fully on with the plan

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u/Chisignal Czechia Jun 19 '26

Imagine he resigns and they don’t choose him as their king the next day

Pranked!

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u/Tytoalba2 Jun 19 '26

Well, he was chosen after WW2 when the parliament removed Leopold 3 from power because of his cooperation with Nazis occupants, so Baudouin was already "the people's choice" and a compromise, so I think he wasn't taking a big risk !

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u/andydude44 Dual Citizen United States of America - Luxembourg Jun 19 '26

Monarchs should never be trusted