For more than 60 years, Europe has led a global trend towards legal access to abortion. Fears of a reversal of this trend have led to the campaign “My Choice, My Voice”, a citizens’ initiative calling for action from the European Commission.
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00:00For more than 60 years, Europe led the global trend towards legal access to abortion.
00:19But fears of a reverse of that trend led to a citizens' initiative calling for action
00:25from the European Commission.
00:27The abortion rights initiative My Choice, My Voice, hit one million signatures last
00:32December.
00:33Yuriko explains what this means on the ground here in Brussels.
00:38The Commission is now obliged to formally respond to the initiative's demand for a
00:42proposal to ensure that all EU citizens, regardless of nationality or residence, have access to
00:47safe and legal abortion services.
00:50In the EU, almost all countries have legalized abortion on request, on average up to 12 weeks
00:56of pregnancy.
00:57Poland and Malta are the only member states that maintain highly restrictive laws.
01:02In Poland, rape, incest and threat to the mother's life are the sole legal justifications
01:07for the procedure, but in Malta, only the latter.
01:11In some countries where abortion is legal on demand, doctors cite moral reasons for
01:17refusing.
01:18We asked Europeans whether abortion should be transferred from a national legislative
01:24competence to an EU competence.
01:54Marta Iraola is following this topic for Euronews.
02:12What answer can we expect from the European Commission to the My Choice, My Voice petition
02:17on abortion rights?
02:18Yes, so now that the initiative reached one million signatures and fulfilled all the minimum
02:25requirements, now the Commission is obliged to issue a response to the Citizens' Initiative.
02:31This means that the College of Commissioners will discuss the topic in one of their meetings
02:35and they will have to come up with something.
02:37This something can be a legislative proposal, a communication or just acknowledgement of
02:44the petition without taking it any further.
02:47In 2022, the United States repealed a law that legalized abortion at the federal level
02:5350 years earlier, giving now the states the right to decide.
02:57Since then, the European Parliament approved a resolution with a clear demand.
03:02What was that?
03:03In April last year, the European Parliament approved a non-binding resolution to enshrine
03:09abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to make it legally binding across all
03:14the EU member states.
03:16However, this is not binding, it's just a symbolic vote, let's say.
03:22And what can we expect from the member states regarding any proposals that are coming from
03:27the Commission and the European Parliament?
03:30If in the end they end up presenting something, a legislative proposal from this initiative,
03:35then it will go to the Council and will be discussed among EU ministers.
03:40However, it is true that the Commission could decide to address abortion through the cross-border
03:47health care directive, which is a directive that allows citizens to seek medical services
03:52across countries within the EU borders.
03:56The 2022 World Health Organization guidelines state that women should not face extra barriers
04:01to request for abortion when they respect the legal time frame.
04:06But in nine EU countries, the law requires women to take a few days of reflection after
04:11submitting the application, including Germany and Portugal.
04:15There is also mandatory counseling by staff in seven member states, such as Hungary and
04:20Italy.
04:21In others, doctors refuse to perform abortions on grounds of conscience, leading women to
04:26have abortions in unsafe places or having to travel to other places.
04:30By contrast, France was the first country in the world to enshrine abortion in the Constitution
04:35last year.
05:05EU countries are very different, because the EU does not have a health competence as such,
05:14it has a support competence, the principle of subsidiarity, that is, if the country has
05:19resources to provide such measures, the EU does not intervene.
05:25The access to abortion, in fact, for the activists and experts of the question, it must be considered
05:40as a fundamental right, because we realize that access to abortion will condition the
05:47exercise of women to their fundamental rights, in particular the right to life, to health,
05:54the right not to be subjected to violence, discrimination, inhumane, degrading treatment, etc.
06:00And, in fact, we see that in countries where abortion is practically forbidden, women
06:07are subjected to great violence.
06:09There is no safe abortion, there is no safe abortion and there is no healthy abortion.
06:14Abortion does not cure any disease.
06:17I would like to open a debate, because if it is a measure that implies violence for the
06:27son or daughter, and that puts the mother at physical and psychological risk, if it is
06:35such a dangerous measure, why is it promoted instead of proposing other types of social
06:42measures, much more constructive and much safer for the mother?
06:54We hope that the legislation that is proposed by this European initiative will succeed,
07:01that the Commission adopts a law that creates this financial mechanism so that Member States
07:08can help women who must have access to abortion.
07:15It seems to me that if it is about financing, in some way, aid for this measure to be developed,
07:22it can incur fraud of the national law.
07:25On the other hand, I would expect from the European Commission a great gesture of closeness
07:30with women in a vulnerable situation, in a critical situation of pregnancy.
07:36Equality Commissioner Haja Labib has this portfolio within the European Union.
07:42When she went to the European Parliament for the first time, she said that it is unacceptable
07:47that there is not an equal access to abortion in all EU countries.
07:51But she also recognized that it will be very difficult to have unanimity from the countries
07:56on this topic.