The European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) will vote on Tuesday 11 May on an own-initiative report on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU. Although the project is not legislative in nature, it has attracted a lot of interest and more than 500 amendments have been tabled.
The text calls on Member States to remove barriers for access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
“What worries and urges a strong response from the EU is the evident backlash in women’s rights, with the right to a safe and legal abortion being one of the key targets in these attacks”, commented rapporteur Predrag Fred Matić (S&D, Croatia).
In the EU, only Malta prohibits abortion under all circumstances. Poland allows it only in a very limited number of cases and has seen significant declines in recent months (see EUROPE 12654/5). However, within the EU27, access to abortion is still sometimes difficult in practice and its critics are increasingly present in the debate.
Several amendments were tabled to explicitly mention in the report that “Member States are attempting to limit access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) by introducing highly restrictive laws”.
Yet another amendment would clarify that “legal, quasi-legal and informal barriers” limit access to abortion, including lack of trained health professionals, denial of medical care based on personal beliefs, biased counselling, deliberate disinformation, or the need for third party authorisation, cost and lack of reimbursement.
The draft report further calls for guaranteeing “sufficient budgetary provision for SRHR and ensure the availability of adequate human resources”.
The text as well invites the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, to promote these rights and to integrate them into the next EU public health strategy.
“The restriction of abortion has grave consequences. The WHO estimates that 25 million unsafe abortions take place each year and they often have fatal consequences. Legal restrictions on abortion do not result in fewer abortions, instead they compel women to risk their lives and health by seeking out unsafe abortion care”, the rapporteur reiterated.
However, many amendments, tabled by MEPs from the ID and ECR groups, the most right-wing groups in the Parliament, aim to completely reverse the message carried by Predrag Fred Matić. In particular, on the subject of abortion, some call for it to be considered only as an ultimate protocol, while others openly oppose it.
To view the draft report: https://bit.ly/3ttMC8U
To consult the amendments tabled: https://bit.ly/3haoyWu; https://bit.ly/2SquSyu (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)