Abortion resolution condemned

A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT resolution calling for abortion to be recognised as a “fundamental right” in all European Union member states has been condemned by Catholic church leaders, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“The EU has no competence in this matter – EU citizens should not be misled,” the Commission of EU Bishops’ Conferences (COMECE) said in a statement on Tuesday. “In many EU member states, abortion is illegal. Out of consideration for human dignity and the conviction that the right to life is absolute, abortion is banned by law. The EU should respect and not interfere with decisions that do not fall in its sphere of competence.”

The Brussels-based commission was reacting to the draft resolution “on reproductive and sexual health”, which was referred for further committee work on Tuesday by 351 votes to 319 in the Strasbourg parliament. It added that the EU’s 28 member states were responsible, by international treaty, for their health policy and medical care services, and said that EU citizens would need reassuring in the run-up to 2014 European Parliament elections that the Union would “stick with its legal competences”.

Abortion is available on demand in 20 EU states, with Britain, Cyprus and Finland allowing it widely, and Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and Poland operating tight restrictions. The resolution calls for terminations to be made “legal, safe and accessible to all” at public expense “through a rights-based approach”, and for a ban on conscientious opt-outs.

Bishop Henryk Tomasik of Radom in Poland denounced the resolution as “another attempt to eliminate God from public life”.