Gynaecologist Joachim Volz is a chief physician in a hospital in Lippstadt, a town with a population just under 70 thousand, situated in Nord-Rhine-Westphalia, halfway between Cologne and Hanover. He took his employer to court because he was ordered to no longer offer abortions, a service he had been able to provide to his patients since 2012, when he had started working in the clinic. The reason: his hospital merged with two catholic clinics and the new co-owners imposed their strict anti-abortion policy on the Lippstadt clinic – and ruled that as a figurehead for their clinic, Joachim Volz also had to stop offering abortions in his private practice.

Recently, the regional labour court decided formally partially in favour of Joachim Volz. I discuss why the ruling is a difficult victory and what's at stake in Germany with Sarah Gonschorek, a feminism activist and member of the board of the North-Rhine Westphalia chapter of the German Council of Women's Organizations, and with Sophia Anders . She’s the daughter of Joachim Volz and herself a senior gynaecologist at a German University hospital.

My interviewees:

• Sarah Gonschorek (personal homepage)
• Sophia Anders - (University Hospital Ulm profile)

Background material (in German)

• online petition in support of Joachim Volz
• the 2024 survey on opinions about abortions (commissioned by the German Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, PDF)
• LinkedIn post by Joachim Volz about his case