Spanish MEP Lina Galvéz (S&D) and Belgian Commissioner for Equality Hadja Lahbib (at left) embrace in the European Parliament during the Tuesday plenary session preceding a Wednesday vote to fund abortion tourism within the EU.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted—358 to 202, with 79 abstentions—in favour of an EU fund to expand abortion access across the bloc, intended to offset costs for member states willing to provide abortions to women traveling from countries where the procedure is restricted or banned.
European Socialists have been quick to hail this “great victory for women.”
The vote follows a campaign by the ‘My Voice, My Choice’ initiative, which—as our Paris correspondent Hélène de Lauzun reveals—is backed by “a consortium of politicised associations that push forward a progressive agenda aimed not only at promoting a culture of death, but also at undermining the sovereignty of states.”
The European Conservatives and Reformists group stressed ahead of the ballot that the Parliament was “overreaching,” adding:
An EU fund supporting abortion procedures and related travel between member states would massively undermine our national democracies and the solidarity between them. It’s up to the Member States to decide on abortion. Not the EU.
🚨 The European Parliament is overreaching.
An EU fund supporting abortion procedures and related travel between member states would massively undermine our national democracies and the solidarity between them.
Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen, from the European Christian Political Party group, has also been one of the most vocal opponents of the fund, which he says would help prop up “abortion tourism.” Europeans, he added in a September debate, “must protect and cherish unborn life and give a voice to those who have none.”
The Left in the Parliament jibed on Wednesday that the initiative has passed “despite opposition from the far-right,” stressing that “the right to abortion is non-negotiable.”
Leftist officials are now calling on the European Commission to “deliver” change. It has until March 2026 to respond to the request.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
