Pope gives approval to EU group seeking to end abortion funding

Defunding Planned Parenthood is not something that just pro-life groups in America are seeking to do – there is a movement across Europe to do the same. According to Gregor Puppinick, director of European Center for Law and Justice:

In the U.S. there are a number of campaigns in order to de-fund Planned Parenthood. We are in some extent trying to do the same, we ask the EU to stop funding Planned Parenthood and similar organizations.

The European Union has a new way for citizens to propose legislation, requiring one million signatures from at least seven European member-states. One of the first initiatives registered in the European Union is “One of Us.” The group’s goal is to end the government’s financial support of abortion:

It’s [sic] goal is to greatly advance the protection of human life from conception in Europe – within the possibilities of the competency of the EU. Based on the definition of the human embryo as the beginning of the development of the human being, which was given in a recent ECJ judgment (Brüstle vs. Greenpeace), “One of Us” asks the EU to end the financing of activities which presuppose the destruction of human embryos, in particular in the areas of research, development aid and public health.

Pope Benedict XVI declared his support for “One of Us” on Sunday:

I salute the Movement for Life. I wish them success with the initiative called One of Us, so that Europe is always a place where the dignity of each human being is protected.

The European Union’s regulations for Sexual and Reproductive Health programs for developing countries specifically states that “[n]o support should be given under this Regulation to incentives to encourage sterilization or abortion.” Yet according to a 2009 report by European Dignity Watch, the budget for the European Union’s Development Aid and Public Health’s “sexual and reproductive health” projects gave money to International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, two of the world’s largest abortion providers. 

This initiative could stop the flow of money to these abortion providers. “One of Us” states that “[t]he desired outcome of the initiative is a concrete ban of life-destroying policies in the EU budget, as well as a political change and greater awareness of the need to respect the wish of so many European citizens.”