After the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said there was no immediate risk to Israeli women's right over their bodies.
"However, we have to remain vigilant," Howorowitz said on Sunday to Kan Public radןo.
The minister last December, said he would institute changes to the rules in abortion commissions, who grant women the right to undergo abortions payed by HMO's if they present cause.
The changes mean to prevent what some women called intrusive and humiliating questioning by the commissions and pervasive lies women feel compelled to make in order to be allowed to undergo the procedure.
Horowitz intended to allow pregnancies up to week 12, without the need to receive permission.
But because of the political crisis and the dissolution of parliament, the changes Horowitz was attempting to institute, may be delayed until the next elections are decided and may even be suspended, should a right-wing and religious government be chosen.
The commissions approve funded abortions up to week 24. Later procedures require special permission from a different panel.
According to Health Ministry data, 17,548 abortions were approved in 2020.
The law states that women under 18 or over 40 years of age, who became pregnant after either non-marital relations or incest, in cases of risk of birth defects, or if there is medical risk to the woman.
Many women have said that in order to receive the payed abortion, they had claimed that they had had adulterous relations.
The ministry did not present figures of privately funded procedures.