Image – Shutterstock: Chamber of Deputies, Luxembourg
With a potential constitutional amendment enshrining abortion as a right in Luxembourg, a political row has erupted after Democratic Party MP Gérard Schockmel criticised plans to enshrine abortion access in the country’s constitution.
In a guest column for the Luxemburger Wort, Schockmel argued that the abortion debate is dominated by a form of modern feminism that he described as divisive and corrosive to social cohesion. He suggested that today’s feminist movement bears little resemblance to the one championed by figures like Simone Veil, the pro-abortion pioneer and Holocaust survivor who pushed for legal abortion in the 1970s whilst holding that there needed to be nuance due to its gravity and moral complexity.
The reaction to Schockmel’s intervention was swift and fierce, not only from political opponents but also from within his own party. Equality Minister Yuriko Backes accused him of misusing Veil’s legacy to advance his argument and insisted that feminism remains an essential corrective to historical injustice. The Democratic Party’s international branch echoed this sentiment, portraying feminism as integral to democracy and arguing that women’s rights and democratic freedoms are inseparable. Feminist organisations went further still, condemning the column as an outdated and ideologically motivated attack on women’s autonomy.
Yet the intensity of the backlash raises deeper questions about the nature of public debate on abortion and related issues. Schockmel’s critics characterised his column as misogynistic and regressive, but few engaged with the substance of his argument: that the conversation has become polarised and intolerant of dissent – rather proving his point. This is significant because, even in countries where abortion is legal and widely accepted, many citizens still hold nuanced or critical views about its moral, social, and ethical implications. For them, the question is not whether women should be supported but whether abortion should be treated as a social good or a regrettable last resort.
There is a danger that branding such concerns as misogyny will only deepen divisions. Across Europe, the new movement to codify abortion is often framed as a progressive milestone, yet it only seems to have closed down meaningful discussion about what society owes both to women in crisis and to the unborn children involved. Those who argue for greater caution, even if they are pro-abortion, are caricatured to be regressive misogynists striving to strip women of ‘hard won’ rights.
Schockmel’s comments weren’t that provocative, but the unbridled ferocity of the response suggests a broader reluctance to tolerate dissent in what will always be a deeply cutting moral debate. That is not progress. That is not freedom. That is tyranny.
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