(LifeSiteNews) — Abortion activists are on the march in Europe. On August 1, the “My Voice, My Choice: For Safe and Accessible Abortion” campaign, a European citizens’ initiative, submitted a petition of over a million signatures to the European Commission demanding a “funding mechanism to make abortion more accessible.”
Nika Kovač, a Slovenian abortion activist, is heading up the initiative. “In Europe, 20 million women do not have access to safe and accessible abortion,” she said. “This means that women continue to die because of limited access to abortion. We know that even if abortion is banned, women will always find a way to have it. And it’s often dangerous.”
“When you see what is happening all over Europe, in Malta, in Poland, in so many countries, and the way the far right is trying to use fundamental human rights, to suppress them, to make them a subject for debate, I think it would be shameful not to fight to defend them,” added Greek abortion activist Anastasia Giamali, who traveled to Brussels for the presentation of the petition.
In fact, Malta, which is the only EU country where the unborn are still entirely protected under law, has some of the best maternal health care in Europe and a very low maternal mortality rate. As of 2023, Malta’s pro-life regime had resulted in zero maternal mortalities in a decade; that same year, the Maltese pro-life movement successfully halted an aggressive push by activists to legalize abortion in their country.
Poland, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his increasingly totalitarian leftist government are attempting to contravene the Constitutional Court and parliament (after Tusk’s proposed abortion bill failed to pass) by permitting abortion illegally, has one of the lowest mortality rates in the EU. In 2020, Poland — where abortion is almost entirely illegal — had a Maternal Mortality Rate of approximately 2 deaths per 100,000 live births. The EU average is 8. In 2017, before abortion was legal, Ireland had an MMR of 6 deaths per 100,000 live births; in 2022, it had already risen to 7.
It is also worth pointing out that it is abortion activists who are pushing to eliminate Europe’s remaining pro-life laws by any means necessary and attacking “fundamental human rights.” In the Netherlands, leftist politicians are currently attempting to have abortion declared a “human right.” In Germany, a prominent judicial candidate was forced to resign after parliamentarians were appalled by her declaration that an unborn baby has no rights even moments before birth. The abortion activist assault on the sanctity of life has been relentless.
Twenty-five of the 27 EU member states have legal abortion on demand, although the gestational age limit varies from country to country. Countries like Portugal and Croatia limit abortion at 12 weeks; the Netherlands allows abortion until 24 weeks, as did the UK until the de facto decriminalization of abortion up until birth earlier this year. Most countries put the cutoff for abortion around 12 weeks of pregnancy on demand. Norway and Denmark raised the abortion limit to 18 weeks, when babies can yawn and hiccup in the womb, last year.
The European Commission now has until March to decide how they will address the position but has stated proactively in a press release that they will not “seek to create a European right to abortion.” The European Union has placed enormous pressure on member states to legalize abortion but cannot interfere with the individual restrictions on abortion in member states. Despite recent abortion activist claims to the contrary, abortion laws do not threaten the lives of women — and pro-life regimes are often safer for mothers than their pro-abortion counterparts.
