While politicians push to make abortion a constitutional right, campaigners across Europe are fighting for policies that help women choose life. At a packed event in Brussels this week, doctors, MEPs, and mothers shared stories of difficult pregnancies and called on the EU to recognise motherhood as a fundamental right worth defending.
The conference, titled Maternity Support in Europe and hosted in the European Parliament by the One of Us platform and the European Conservatives and Reformists group, brought together more than two hundred participants from twenty countries.
Speakers warned that while Brussels funds campaigns promoting abortion, little is done to strengthen the networks that help women continue their pregnancies—a “moral asymmetry,” as one organiser put it, that treats motherhood as a burden instead of a social good.
Opening the event, former European Commissioner for Health Tonio Borg said the EU was failing women by ignoring their need for real support during pregnancy. He told the conference:
We want motherhood to be a protected good, not a burden. If Europe wants to defend freedom, it must begin by protecting life.
Maltese MEP Peter Agius also stressed the need to respect each country’s right to make its own laws on such issues. He warned that the push to include abortion as a supposed right in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights represents “a direct violation of the sovereignty of Member States and of freedom of conscience.”
The most moving moments were the personal testimonies of women from France, Italy, and the Netherlands, who shared their experiences of difficult pregnancies and their struggle to receive support in often hostile environments.
One young Dutch woman, speaking through tears, told how the foundation There Is Hope supported her through her pregnancy when everyone else urged her to have an abortion:
It wasn’t an easy decision, but when I heard ‘congratulations’ instead of ‘what are you going to do,’ I knew there was hope.
Another woman, from France, described how the lack of support and medical pressure led to an abortion she now calls “the darkest point” of her life. Both stories gave a human face to a hidden reality: thousands of women across Europe do not freely choose abortion—they turn to it because they lack support and alternatives.
Among the MEPs present, Slovak representative Miroslav Adámek stood out for condemning the “moral relativism” dominating Europe’s debate on life and human rights.
We are called extremists for defending human dignity from conception to natural death, but the real extremism is denying that every human being has the right to be born.
“When motherhood is destroyed, the future of Europe is destroyed,” another MEP warned, calling for policies that treat motherhood as a cornerstone of society rather than a private matter.
The event also drew attention to growing political pressure in countries such as France and Spain, where governments are trying to make abortion a constitutional right. Isabel Navarro, spokeswoman for the Spanish group Professionals for Ethics, told europeanconservative.com that this was “a desperate attempt by political elites to preserve abortion in a society that is becoming increasingly pro-life.”
More and more young people understand the horror of abortion and are demanding policies that support motherhood. That’s why political elites are trying to entrench it in national constitutions.
Navarro insisted that the future of Europe depends on “an alliance of those who believe in life,” adding that “true equality begins when no woman is forced to choose between her child and her future.”
Far from being a political showdown, the conference was marked by a constructive and deeply human tone. Organisers urged that the right to maternity support—already recognised in Article 33 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights—be turned into real measures such as tax breaks, housing aid, counselling, job support, and funding for charities that help mothers.
As one participant put it: “Defending life is not a step backwards—it is the beginning of every civilization.”
