The majority of MPs voted in favor of the resolution. The SPÖ MEP Regner reminds that the Austrian deadline solution means that abortions remain unpunished, but are not legal.
After the US Supreme Court granted the right to abortion has overturned, the EU Parliament wants to include the right to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The MPs adopted a corresponding resolution in Strasbourg on Thursday, in which they also expressed solidarity with girls and women in the USA. The European Parliament strongly condemns the regression in women’s rights, the statement said.
The background to Parliament’s step is a decision by the US Supreme Court, which up until then had been relatively liberal abortion rights of the country had overturned at the end of June. The mostly conservative court made stricter decisions possible abortion laws up to bans. Several US states sat after the decision extensive abortion bans in force – in several states a right to abortion but persist.
Many restrictions also in European countries
“This was not a majority decision by American citizens, but the decision of a few, mostly male politicians who presume to want to determine women’s bodies. That should be a warning signal for us in Europe,” warned SPÖ MEP Evelyn Regner in a broadcast. “Because even if the rejection of abortion bans is high in Europe, we also have strong organized activism, which is often supported from the USA. In addition, there are also legal and actual restrictions on abortions almost everywhere in the EU.”
German Green MEP Terry Reintke said: “Ideological trench warfare must no longer be waged on women’s bodies and health.” Many Conservative and Christian Democrat MPs – including EPP parliamentary group leader Manfred Weber (CSU) – voted against the resolution.
Strict bans in Malta and Poland
Some strict regulations apply in the EU abortion laws: Abortion is banned in Malta – if it is illegal abortions threatens to imprisonment. Poland had its strict abortion law tightened in autumn 2020. Since are abortions only allowed after rape or when the life or health of the mother is in danger. The family of a mother who died earlier this year made serious allegations against the treating doctors after the law was changed. Accordingly, these would have because of the strict abortion law in Poland did not dare to save the life of the woman through an abortion.
In Austria, “abortions are not punishable, and therefore not legal in the first three months of pregnancy either,” explained Regner. “So the debate about women’s self-determination in Europe will remain!”
“With not a single possibility in Burgenland to have abortions performed on request, and only one gynecologist each in Vorarlberg and Tyrol, we are still a long way from the low-threshold access to abortions that we Greens advocate in this country in 2022,” criticized Meri Disoski, deputy club chairwoman and women’s spokeswoman for the Greens. “Abortions, on the other hand, are becoming more and more of a social issue because women are confronted with high costs and long journeys to other federal states.”
(APA/dpa)