The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) has condemned the European Parliament for considering the potential repeal of Roe vs Wade a threat to “abortion rights”. Following a debate on the issue, the European Parliament demanded that the US Supreme Court uphold Roe vs Wade.

SPUC has similarly condemned the European Parliament for its “despicable pro-abortion position”, as well as its “arrogant and shameless attempt to undermine the rule of law in the United States”.

On 8 June, the European Parliament debated the potential repeal of Roe vs Wade, the infamous US Supreme Court ruling that legalised abortion in the US in 1973. The title of the debate was: “Global threats to abortion rights: the possible overturn of abortion rights in the US by the Supreme Court.”

A COMECE statement, issued on 8 June by its Secretary General, Fr Manuel Barrios Prieto, rejected the wording of this scheduled European Parliament session as “unacceptable interference in the democratic jurisdictional decisions of a sovereign state…

“There is no recognised right to abortion in European or international law. Therefore, no state can be obliged to legalize or facilitate it, or be instrumental in performing it.”

The European Parliament later voted 364 to 154 (37 abstentions) in favour of a resolution demanding that the US Supreme Court uphold Roe vs Wade. The same resolution said that all EU nations should decriminalise abortion.

European pro-abortion agenda

The European Parliament and the European Union have become increasingly forceful in pushing a pro-abortion agenda at home and abroad, especially after European Union MEPs voted in favour of a resolution, last year, which deemed abortion a fundamental human right.

Last January, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared before the European Parliament in Strasbourg to call for the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to include abortion. He was applauded by the Parliament, as reported at the time by SPUC.

A short time later, Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, insisted that the traditionally Catholic and pro-life nation of Malta legalise abortion and outlaw conscientious objection to abortion.

Rejecting Mijatovic’s demands, the Maltese Government stated that it “does not agree with the interpretation that the right to sexual and reproductive health services includes an intrinsic right to abortion”.

Malta and Poland have continued to resist pro-abortion European interference in their domestic affairs. Both nations have been applauded by SPUC for their global pro-life leadership. 

“A new low” in European leadership

SPUC’s Michael Robinson, Executive Director (Public Affairs and Legal Services), said: “This recent European Parliament ‘debate’ is yet another example of the appalling state of European leadership, which has fallen to a new low, even lower now after a pro-abortion militant was charged with the attempted assassination of a reportedly pro-life Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh.

“As this happened, the European Parliament, in its arrogance, attempted to force its own despicable pro-abortion position on Supreme Court Justices – an intrusion into the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation that is typical of a European elite that has sought to bully its pro-life neighbours into denying the human rights of unborn babies.

“The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union is therefore right to denounce such inexcusable conduct that does not, and cannot, represent the entirety of European opinion on the matter of abortion.

“Pro-life nations such as Malta and Poland exhibit true leadership, not by trying to bully other nations and undermine their lawful, democratic processes, but instead by being meaningfully pro-life in their own law, upholding the right to life of the unborn.

“At a time when European ‘leadership’, in the form of the European Parliament, has become so hectoring and evidently shameless, it is vital that European pro-life leaders stand up even taller for justice, love and the integrity of the democratic process.”