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On 11 April 2024, the European Parliament voted (336 in favour, 163 against and 39 abstentions) for a resolution to amend Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to include the right to abortion. Although European Parliament resolutions are not binding, they nevertheless express the official position of the legislative body if a majority of MEPs vote in favour of them. As for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it is binding on the Member States, but only when the matters in question fall within the competence of the European Union, which is not the case with abortion. Finally, in order to amend the Charter, the amendment proposed in Parliament's resolution must be adopted in the law of the European Union Treaties. This requires all Member States to agree to the amendment and ratify it in accordance with their own national constitutions. This is unlikely to happen given the national differences on this issue. Nevertheless, the vote in favour of such a resolution reflects a repeated desire to encourage Member States to liberalise abortion still further by considering it as a right, and not from the point of view of prevention.
In its current version, section 3 of the Charter protects the right to physical and mental integrity. Parliament is proposing to add "bodily autonomy" with the intention of guaranteeing "free, informed, full and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and all related health care services, including safe and legal abortion". Parliament therefore urges states to make abortion legal, without specifying any conditions relating to the health of the woman or the unborn child. In this sense, it is also addressing countries that have already largely decriminalised abortion, calling on them to achieve "complete decriminalisation". Drawing on the WHO's 2022 guidelines, it calls on Member States to "remove and combat obstacles to safe and legal abortion", as it considers that "denial of access to abortion care constitutes a violation of these fundamental rights".
Towards a right without limits?
It should be noted that the consequences of abortion on a woman's health, both physical and psychological, are not considered in the resolution. Yet these consequences are very real, attested both by science (see Psychological consequences of abortion and Extending abortion beyond 3 months of pregnancy: medical, psychological and ethical issues) and by public opinion (IFOP Vita poll), and should alert us to the real needs of women in terms of abortion prevention. On the contrary, the European Parliament regrets that, in Belgium in particular, "several attempts to decriminalise abortion completely" have been "delayed in the federal parliament". Yet in this country, which has a resolutely pro-abortion policy, the same consequences for women's health have been observed. (See Summary of the Report of the Belgian Abortion Commission 2020-2021).
What's more, in its plea in favour of abortion, the European Parliament comes up against the freedom of conscience of healthcare providers and goes so far as to condemn the fact that some doctors "refuse to perform abortions on the basis of the 'conscience clause'". A sign that the right of health professionals to conscientious objection is increasingly being called into question.