BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union said Thursday it will support financial support for women seeking abortions, following a years-long campaign by more than 1 million citizens in 27 countries to expand support for women in countries with conservative laws.
EU Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib said on Thursday that EU countries could use the 147 billion euro European Social Funds Plus to treat and pay for abortions for women, regardless of which EU country they come from.
“Nearly half a million unsafe abortions occur every year in Europe,” Rahbib said. “Security and freedom must never depend on your zip code or your income.”
She praised the My Voice, My Choice campaign, saying organizers brought her boxes filled with letters from women across the EU.
The initiative calls on the EU to set up a separate fund to help women traveling abroad to secure safe abortions. Although the committee did not do so, organizers said the decision achieved their goals in other ways.
“While no new legal instrument has been developed, the Commission has formally recognized that the core objectives of our initiative are achievable and has outlined concrete ways to implement them in practice,” said Nika Kovač, coordinator of the My Voice, My Choice initiative. “This is not symbolic. This is a political commitment to women’s rights.”
“There is no doubt that access to safe abortion is a matter of public health and social justice,” Kovac said. “For the first time, the Commission has clearly confirmed that EU funds can be used to guarantee access to safe abortion care – especially for women in vulnerable situations, regardless of where they come from in Europe.”
Abortion is legal in most of Europe. France, for example, wrote the right to abortion into its constitution in 2024. But abortion is severely restricted in Poland, Malta, Liechtenstein and Monaco, according to the European Parliament’s Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights.
A unique EU agreement called the European Citizens Initiative prompted the Commission to take a stance on the initiative. A public campaign launched through the official website must gain more than one million signatures across the EU to prompt formal deliberations by the EU executive in Brussels.
Activists secured more than 1 million votes starting in 2024, with European lawmakers voting in favor of the funding in December by 358 votes to 202, with 79 abstentions.
Opponents of the initiative say it would force the EU majority to support countries that choose more conservative laws.
“How do I explain to my people, the Maltese, that their decision, we are here to overturn?” Maltese MP Peter Agius said during a discussion of the initiative in the European Parliament in December. He voted for the European People’s Party, which is in the same political alliance as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“Today is a good day for women’s rights in Europe,” Kovac said. “Today we won, today we will celebrate and tomorrow we will start working more.”
