As International Safe Abortion Day approaches on 28 September, the European Parliament’s Gender Equality Committee (FEMM) put the issue of sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) back on the agenda on Tuesday 19 September. This is an opportunity for the invited experts to argue in favour of abortion rights in the EU and worldwide.
Contrasting situations in the EU
While a number of MEPs have warned of the decline of the SRHR in Europe, Camille Gervais, legal adviser to the Center for Reproductive Rights, has provided a more nuanced analysis of the situation.
For her, “the trend in the region is broadly progressive: since 2018 over 15 countries have liberalised their abortion laws”. However, this progress is not only far from sufficient, but has also led to a backlash in some Member States, including Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Jasenka Grujić, a Croatian gynaecologist, also pointed out that when abortion is legal, it is not necessarily carried out. In particular, she denounced doctors who raise conscientious objections. Her Spanish colleague, Laia Sanchez, insisted on the need for “comprehensive sex and emotional education” from a very early age.
Finally, while Margarita de la Pisa Carrión (ECR, Spanish) described the right to abortion as a “nightmare”, doctors and Birgit van Hout, Director of the Brussels office of the United Nations Population Fund, pointed out that banning abortion only leads to an increase in unsafe abortions.
A call to action
Ms Gervais therefore called on the EU to react more firmly to breaches of SRHR, but also to “strengthen the legal and political protection of sexual and reproductive health at EU level based on public health standards”, believing that it can take more action within its remit.
“We need to provide the same standards across Europe and not hide ourselves behind the same line that we always use that this is national competence”, reacted Fred Matić (S&D, Croatian). Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Greens/EFA, French) and Lina Gálvez Muñoz (S&D, Spanish), meanwhile, regretted that the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) had not included a provision on SRHR in its draft revision of the EU Treaties (see EUROPE 13250/16).
Finally, Ms Van Hout called for issues relating to SRHR to be included in political dialogues with third countries and to receive adequate funding. “Today we are facing a global backlash against SRHR. This makes the EU’s principled stances on SRHR all the more essential”, she added. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)