“This law will expand women’s rights and put an end to obstacles preventing the free exercise of the right to abortion,” insisted Spain’s equality minister, Irene Montero, after ambitious new legislation was approved at cabinet last month. The law aims to guarantee free public provision of abortions, in a country where over 80 percent of voluntary terminations currently take place in the private clinics, at great cost to working-class women. It also promises to overturn a series of paternalistic restrictions imposed by the previous right-wing administration.

The law, which still needs final approval in parliament, has made international headlines for its far-reaching reforms. It will make Spain among the first countries in the world to legislate for paid leave from work for women suffering from period pain. “We are breaking the taboo around menstrual pain, thus far experienced by so many women in terms of silence and shame in the workplace,” argued Montero, who is also deputy leader of left-wing party Unidas Podemos.

The move is part of a raft of feminist legislation, including an important trans rights law and new active consent legislation, promoted by a government coalition uniting Unidas Podemos with the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). Yet this effort also faces obstacles, in a Spain torn between a left-leaning executive and reactionary judicial authorities, who have made a series of sharply political interventions in recent years.