\n<\/p>\n
EU states will be able to tap into a social fund to help citizens access safe abortions, in an announcement hailed as a \u201cvictory for women\u201d.<\/p>\n
The roots of Thursday\u2019s announcement go back to a long campaign for the European Commission to create a funding mechanism that would allow women from countries with near-total bans on abortion, such as Malta and Poland, to go where it is legal.<\/p>\n
At the heart of the My Voice, My Choice campaign was the assertion that women across the 27 member states should have equal access to legal, safe abortions.<\/p>\n
More than 1.2 million people signed up to the initiative, forcing the commission to reply. The proposal was backed by a majority of MEPs in December.<\/p>\n
The commission said countries would be able to draw on already allocated funds for social services to support travel and access to abortion care. \u201cThis is groundbreaking,\u201d said Hadja Lahbib, the EU\u2019s commissioner for equality. \u201cThis decision will change lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The aim was to reduce the 500,000 unsafe abortions that took place in Europe every year, she said. \u201cThis is half a million women at risk, half a million women traumatised, half a million women who may carry lifelong consequences, and this is half a million too many,\u201d added Lahbib.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live, of course, unfortunately, in a time when women\u2019s bodies have become political battlefields, when rights are being rolled back around the world. But Europe is standing firm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU has seen a surge in support for far-right parties, many of which oppose abortion. Olivier Bault of Ordo Iuris, a Polish anti-abortion group that championed a near-blanket ban in 2020, told Reuters the EU announcement impinged on countries\u2019 rights to set their own health policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing the European social fund, arguing that it can be used for healthcare purposes, means making a joke of Europeans\u2019 national laws,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Nika Kova\u010d, the coordinator of the My Voice, My Choice campaign, said: \u201cFor the first time, the commission confirms unequivocally that EU funds can be used to guarantee access to safe abortion care \u30fc particularly for women in vulnerable situations, regardless of where they come from in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday is a victory for women in Europe. This is not symbolic. It is a political commitment to women\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
While campaigners were disappointed that the commission had stopped short of allocating new financial resources, they embraced what they saw as a new path toward guaranteeing women\u2019s rights. \u201cMember states must now use the pathway that was created,\u201d said Kova\u010d.<\/p>\n
Campaigners said their work was far from done, noting that they would continue to push the commission to provide additional, dedicated funding for abortions. They also called on the commission to be swift in providing clear instructions to member states on how they could access the funds and in creating a means for women to access the scheme across the bloc.<\/p>\n
Manon Aubry, a leftwing French MEP, said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to fight until not a single woman is dying in Europe because she cannot access abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EU states will be able to tap into a social fund to help citizens access safe abortions, in an announcement hailed as a \u201cvictory for women\u201d. The roots of Thursday\u2019s announcement go back to a long campaign for the European Commission to create a funding mechanism that would allow women from countries with near-total bans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[5457,3881,116,4868,1030,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-45367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-bloc","10":"tag-funding","11":"tag-guarantee","12":"tag-opens","13":"tag-rights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}