A Civil Guard swoop on clinics in Barcelona arrested six people on Monday, in a case which is investigating alleged illegal abortions. El Mundo names the four clinics searched as the TBC, Emece, Ginemedex and Fundación Morón, which are all in the Tres Torres area of the city. One of those in custody is the Director of the Ginexedex-TCB Group, Carlos Morín: it’s the second occasion the group has come under scrutiny.

It’s understood that a number of boxes of documentation relating to abortions performed at the clinics were studied as part of the investigation.

The operation follows a complaint placed by the Catholic organisation, e-Christians, which was accepted for investigation by an Instruction Court in Barcelona in July, and which itself followed a television report in Denmark, which alleged that abortions were taking place in the Emece clinic on women who were up to six months pregnant.

The documentary used a hidden camera with their reporter shown as being 30 weeks pregnant, and asked to fill in a questionnaire on her psychological health as a ‘bureaucratic’ procedure. She was accepted for the procedure at the price of 4,000 €.

A new law passed in Spain in 1985 made abortion no longer a criminal offence in certain cases, only when there is serious risk to the mother’s physical or mental health, if she had been a victim of rape, or if the child would be born with serious mental or physical deficiencies. The upper limit is at 22 weeks gestation.

The law stipulates that each of the cases must be backed up by medical reports, or, in the case of rape, by a report to the police.