The European Union’s parliament voted on Wednesday in favor of a scheme that will enable women from nations restricting abortion to terminate pregnancies in one other member state freed from charge.
The “My Voice, My Selection” residents’ initiative proposes a fund from the EU budget to cover procedures for people from nations with near-total bans akin to Malta and Poland or places where abortion is difficult to access, like Italy and Croatia.
While the trend in Europe has been towards more accessibility for abortions, with the UK decriminalizing it and France making it a constitutional freedom, there was a surge in popular support for far-right parties, lots of which oppose abortion.
After the parliament vote of 358 for and 202 against, the European Commission is to determine in March whether to adopt the proposal, though other residents’ initiatives haven’t been entirely successful.
Proponents of the initiative, including abortion rights campaigners and a few members of parliament (MEPs) from the left to center-right, say it should reduce unsafe practices and help women who lack funds for a procedure abroad.
Critics, including far-right and a few center-right MEPs, say the proposal interferes in national laws and traditional Christian values.
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Under the European Residents’ Initiative (ECI) mechanism launched in 2012, the parliamentary vote is advisory only but can influence the Commission decision.
“Today we show the world, but above all our residents, that the EU stands by women. The EU stands for gender equality, and the EU shouldn’t be afraid to satisfy all human rights, also women’s human rights,” Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani of the centrist Renew Europe group told reporters in Strasbourg.
In Poland, where abortion was outlawed in nearly all cases in 2021, abortion rights activists applauded the vote.
“With that resolution, it signifies that (Polish women) don’t have to risk their lives within the Polish healthcare system,” said Mateusz Bieżuński, a lawyer with Polish organization Federa (Foundation for Women and Family Planning).
Jerzy Kwasniewski, of Polish anti-abortion group Ordo Iuris, said he viewed the vote as “contrary to European values” and expected the proposal to be rejected by the Commission.
Within the lead-up to Wednesday’s vote, opponents held events with anti-abortion rights federation One among Us and the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a sister organization of the American Center for Law and Justice, which litigates on abortion cases, and was involved within the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade case.
“It is gloomy that Europe is stuck on this ideological approach,” ECLJ director Gregor Puppinck said of the vote. “The battle for us is in the beginning a cultural one, and deep down we’re convinced that life will win ultimately.”