EU DECODED: Should access to abortion be harmonised within EU?

The Commission is obliged to formally respond to the initiative’s demand for a proposal to “ensure that all EU citizens, regardless of nationality or residence, have access to safe and legal abortion services”, as the petition exceeded the legal threshold of 1 million signatures collected from more than seven member states, in this case 15 member states were covered.

In the EU, almost all countries have legalized abortion on request, on average up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Poland and Malta are the only member states that maintain more restrictive rules.

In Poland, rape, incest and threat to the mother’s life are the sole legal justifications for the procedure, but in Malta only the latter.

In some countries where abortion is legal on demand, doctors cite moral reasons for refusing. We asked Europeans whether abortion should be transferred from a national legislative competence to an EU competence.

“There should be such fundamental basic rights, such basic guidelines set by the EU,” said one resident in Budapest. But another in Rome said: “It is impossible to be able to organize and homogenize health care and women’s care across Europe.”

The European Commission could pick up the petition and present a legislative proposal, but it could also simply acknowledge the petition in a communication, without taking it any further.

“If the Commission ends up presenting a legislative proposal, it will go to the Council and be discussed among EU ministers. However, the Commission could decide to address abortion through the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive, which allows citizens to seek medical care services between countries within EU borders,” says Marta Iraola, a reporter covering the issue for Euronews.

Should it be a fundamental right?

In 2022, the US repealed a law legalising abortion at federal level 50 years ago, giving states the right to decide individually instead. The European Parliament has since passed a non-binding resolution to enshrine safe access to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, so that it becomes binding in all EU member states.

This would be welcomed by Lucide Barridez, from the Abortion Rights Platform. “Access to abortion must be considered a fundamental right because it will have an impact on the exercise of women’s fundamental rights, in particular the right to life, to health, to not suffer violence , discrimination, inhuman or degrading treatment,” she told EU Decoded.

By contrast, Patricia Santos, from CEU San Pablo University said: “There is no such thing as a safe abortion or a healthy abortion. Abortion does not cure any disease. Therefore, I would like to open a debate on a measure that implies violence towards a son or daughter and that puts the mother at physical and psychological risk.”

The scholar adds that “it is a dangerous measure because it encourages abortion instead of proposing other types of social measures that are much more constructive and safer for the mother.”

World Health Organization guidelines state that women should not face extra barriers to requests for abortion when they respect legal timeframes, such as mandatory periods to reflect about the decision or cooling off periods for counselling with social and health workers.

But in several EU countries the law imposes such requirements and women may also face refusal from doctors on grounds of conscience, leading some to risk backstreet abortions, or to travel to other regions or countries. By contrast, France was the first country in the world to enshrine abortion in the Constitution.

This is an important issue that will hit the desk of Commissioner for Equality Hadja Lahbib as she leads the Sexual and Reproductive Health portfolio at the European Commission.

Watch the video here!

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Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva

Content production: Pilar Montero López

Video production: Zacharia Vigneron

Graphism: Loredana Dumitru

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Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones