Image – Shutterstock: Oatawa
The European Commission is reviewing a proposal to create a fund that would financially aid women to access abortion in countries where the procedure is legal, when they are unable to do so in their own due to pro-life legislation.
An initiative, launched by the My Voice, My Choice movement, called for EU financial support for women travelling abroad for abortions. They garnered more than one million signatures across the EU. According to the pro-abortion campaigners, such a fund would ease any financial burden currently borne by charities and individuals. The Commission has confirmed that it will study the proposal and provide a formal response by March 2026.
Supporters argue that the measure is necessary to prevent cases like that of Mirela Čavajda, a Croatian woman who, at 26 weeks pregnant, discovered that her unborn baby had a medical condition. After several hospitals in Croatia refused to destroy her baby, she travelled to Slovenia, where a medical commission approved the abortion. The operation cost her around €5,000, though Croatian NGOs later covered those funds.
Abortion is legal in Croatia up to ten weeks on request, and under limited circumstances afterwards. However, one in six doctors there are conscientious objectors, so permitted by law to refuse participation in abortions on moral or religious grounds.
Campaigners also highlight restrictions in other EU countries. Poland and Malta maintain some of the most stringent pro-life laws in Europe. In Poland, a 2020 constitutional court ruling effectively banned abortion in cases of “severe foetal abnormality,” while in Malta, abortion is allowed only when a woman’s life is at risk, something that must be determined by three specialists.
The European Commission has said that the proposal would not create an EU-wide right to abortion, but rather a voluntary fund that member states could choose to join. To SPUC that sounds like an EU-wide right to abortion. The plan faces opposition from several governments and members of the European Parliament, who argue that abortion is a deeply moral issue and that EU institutions should respect national sovereignty on matters involving the protection of human life – we agree.
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