The European Union (EU) Parliament is set to vote on a resolution that calls for enshrining abortion as a fundamental right and clearing all legal obstacles to abortion on demand, including the removal of a physicians’ right to conscientious objection.
In early June, the draft report from the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality “on the situation of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU” cleared the EU Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality by a vote of 27 to 6, with 1 abstention. It will advance to the EU Parliament’s plenary session for a full vote on June 23, where it is expected to pass.
Although EU Member States would not be legally bound by the resolution, the motion seeks to undermine Member States’ autonomy on abortion, concentrate power in the EU and its agencies, and force pro-life countries to change their laws.
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Laying a radically pro-abortion foundation
Introduced by Predrag Matić, the resolution frames abortion as part of an umbrella of “sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)” that includes “the rights of all individuals to have their bodily integrity and personal autonomy respected.” Although seemingly innocuous, under the SRHR definition the resolution includes access to “safe and legal abortion services.”
The report specifically calls out Member States’ restrictions on abortion as “a violation of human rights and a form of gender-based violence,” lambasting such pro-life measures as an attack on “the right to life, physical and mental integrity, equality, non-discrimination, health and education.”
The pro-abortion measure also calls upon member states to view conscientious objection to abortion as “denial of medical care.”
The resolution calls upon “the EU, its bodies and agencies to support and promote access to SRHR services and calls upon the Member States to ensure access to a full range of SRHR, and to remove all barriers impeding full access to SRHR.”
“Fundamental right” to abortion is nothing less than totalitarianism
The attempt to call pro-life laws a “violation of human rights” and even “gender-based violence” is a distortion of language in the name of abortion activism, designed largely to deceive. As the European Centre for Law & Justice (ECLJ) points out, there is no “right to abortion” in international law or treaty, nor any European conventions or charters. Abortion, the killing of an innocent human being, can never be a human right. Abortion is a gruesome form of violence, one which itself is often gender-based, with the UN estimating 1.2 million preborn girls aborted annually.
The perversion of language is nothing less than Orwellian, and the attempt to outlaw the conscientious objection of health professionals, and coerce their complicity in the killing of preborn babies, is nothing short of totalitarianism. In the U.S., this type of abortion activism has echoes in the radical Women’s Health Protection Act, which would remove conscience protections for pro-life doctors in the name of abortion on demand.
The resolution is a radical pro-abortion ideology that seeks to erase pro-life views and is not rooted in science or sound medical practice. The intentional killing of a preborn baby is never medically necessary, and killing preborn babies is not “medical care” nor any form of health care and does nothing but deeply violate the Hippocratic Oath. This was affirmed by over 1,000 trained and certified medical professionals around the world in the Dublin Declaration. During the height of the pandemic, a statement by medical groups representing 30,000 physicians pointed out that “elective abortion treats no disease process,” as Live Action News reported.
While women have rights of their own bodily autonomy like any other human being, they have no more right to kill another human than anyone else. The only human rights being violated in this declaration are those of the preborn baby, and of the conscientious objectors who hold deeply-rooted beliefs in the evils of intentionally taking the life of vulnerable humans in their care.
Such a “fundamental human right” is simply impossible when applied to a person’s right to snuff out the life of another, distinct human being.
A subtle strategy: Undermining pro-life policies in EU Member States
The resolution poses a very real threat to the EU members with protections for preborn babies. Although not legally binding, the ECLJ notes, “the promoters of this draft resolution are trying to take advantage of the system of soft law, in order to introduce a new norm without it appearing at first sight to be imposed.” Although not legally binding, “the choice of the institution in this strategy is not to be underestimated,” since “a resolution may subsequently serve to politically legitimise action by the Member States or the institutions; it is intended to produce practical effects. More importantly, it can express a pre-legislative intention that can later be used to justify binding acts.”
READ: ‘She was having nightmares’: Abortion worker shares photo of late-term aborted baby with pro-lifers
It is no coincidence that some of the strongest objections have come from Malta, which has the most robust legal protections for preborn babies, and which has already been the target of abortion activists. As Doctors for Life Malta have pointed out, the resolution poses an imminent threat to Malta’s sovereignty, the principle of subsidiarity, and the right of conscientious objectors, as reported by Malta Today.
If this Orwellian resolution were to pass, EU countries with any pro-life protections, including basic conscience rights for physicians, would wake up to find themselves in the crosshairs of increasingly totalitarian abortion activism — one that seemingly will stop at nothing to achieve its objectives.
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