The European Parliament has begun debate on adding the “right” to abortion to the European Union (EU) Charter of Fundamental Rights. A draft resolution to include abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights passed in a 336-163 vote this week, though largely symbolic. The resolution is not binding, and the support of all 27 member states would be required in order to change the charter.
The resolution also called for the defunding of pro-life groups. “MEPs are concerned about the significant surge in funding for anti-gender and anti-choice groups around the world, including in the EU,” a press release said. “They call on the Commission to ensure that organisations working against gender equality and women’s rights, including reproductive rights, do not receive EU funding. Member states and local governments must increase their spending on programmes and subsidies to healthcare and family planning services.”
This year, France codified abortion as a constitutional right, and President Emanuel Macron quickly began lobbying the EU to do the same. But the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) is pushing back. COMECE, which is based in Brussels and made up of bishops from the bishops’ conferences of over two dozen member states of the EU, has released a statement condemning the notion. In the statement, the bishops called for more protection and rights for women, specifically so they don’t feel as if abortion is their only choice.
“We work for a Europe where women can live their maternity freely and as a gift for them and for society and where being a mother is in no way a limitation for personal, social and professional life,” the statement said. “Promoting and facilitating abortion goes in the opposite direction to the real promotion of women and their rights.”
READ: Why protecting human life should not be decided by ‘the will of the people’
Furthermore, they added that abortion can never be considered a fundamental right, explaining, “The right to life is the fundamental pillar of all other human rights, especially the right to life of the most vulnerable, fragile and defenceless, like the unborn child in the womb of the mother, the migrant, the old, the person with disabilities and the sick.”
The European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has also responded to the EU’s push on abortion, calling for members to work to prevent abortion, not expand it.
“[N]o European or international human rights treaty or system establishes abortion as a right. The right to life is protected in various treaties, and there is even international protection for children before birth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” the letter read, adding, “On a European scale, this initiative only serves to deepen divisions within the Union and fuel a form of cultural warfare between EU countries. It does not in any way improve the situation for women, for whom the main problem is not access to abortion itself, its root causes, and consequences.”
