Polish far-right slams EU abortion financing initiative

Funding abortions for women seeking treatment in other EU member states with limited services is “unacceptable”, conservative opposition MP Karina Bosak told Euractiv.pl, referring to a recently registered EU citizens’ initiative.

Bosak referred to the EU Citizens’ Initiative dubbed “My Voice, My Choice”, registered by the European Commission last month. It calls on the Commission to put forward a proposal to set up a fund to cover the costs of women who cannot access abortion in their own member state and choose to travel to another country with more liberal abortion laws.

“It is unacceptable to use the money coming from the taxes to provide abortion to the citizens of countries when abortion is a crime,” Karina Bosak of the ultra-conservative Confederation Party, wife of the party’s co-leader Krzysztof Bosak, told Euractiv.pl.

Bosak believes the initiative will most likely be defeated due to the social controversy surrounding the abortion procedure and the widespread lack of consent and opposition from citizens in many EU countries.

“The very creation of such a fund could cause opposition from all citizens who would not like their tax money to finance killing unborn children, to which they do not consent,” Bosak said.

The “My Voice, My Choice” campaign has gathered over 143,000 signatures so far and aims to make “Europe more fair, more free, and more equal.”

Currently, the lack of access to abortion as basic health care for women in many parts of Europe not only puts women at risk of physical harm but also places undue economic and psychological burdens on women, according to the initiative’s authors.

They cite EU treaties and the EU Charter of Rights, including Article 1, which states that “human dignity is inviolable” and “must be respected and protected.”

“Women who lack access to safe and legal abortions are deprived of many of their fundamental rights and thus reduced to second-class citizens,” they argue.

Legal and political obstacles

However, there are serious obstacles to the initiative becoming law.

First and foremost, abortion is a national issue, and the European Union can only provide support to member countries while ensuring that they retain their responsibility for defining their health policies and organising their health services.

However, the initiative states that it does not seek to harmonise or interfere with member states’ laws and regulations on abortion.

“Therefore, there seems to be no straightforward targeted interference with the competences of Member States to define their own health policy and the organisation of their health services by the simple fact of providing financial support to provide this type of health service,” the Commission said in its decision to register the initiative.

Still, the EU executive warns that “the concrete set-up of a financial support mechanism could nonetheless result in such interference.”

“The EU treaties do not contain a ‘right to abortion,’ much less any provisions on abortion funding,” Julia Książek of the conservative Ordo Iuris legal organisation and think tank told Euractiv.pl.

She added that such funding would require a treaty change or the adoption of a new legal act, which is likely to be opposed by some member states.

The Left hopes for a change

In Poland, abortions are only allowed in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape or if the mother’s life is in danger. The removal of the third case, damage to the foetus, led to massive protests across the country against the PiS (ECR) government in 2020.

The liberalisation of abortion laws was a promise made by Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO, EPP/S&D/Greens) and the Left (S&D), both of which are now part of the ruling coalition.

Three different bills on the topic of abortion are currently being debated in parliament, two of which (by KO and the Left) would allow abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, and one which would reinstate the pre-2020 abortion law.

The Polish Left “has proudly joined the My Voice My Choice initiative, aimed at legal and safe abortion,” Left MEP Robert Biedroń told Euractiv.pl.

“It was women who brought down the PiS government, and it will be women who finally get their full rights in Europe,” he said, calling Poland’s abortion law “barbaric” and needing to be stopped.

“Polish women deserve to have equal rights like the Belgian or French women,” Biedroń added.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

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