Abortion could give birth to EU narrative

An abortion ban near you?

The interparliamentary meeting - involving the European parliament, and national parliaments - held recently in Brussels to discuss the future of Europe was not well attended by the press. I counted five on the press gallery, nt including myself. Three of those were evidently student journalists - from Austria, perhaps? - and one slept through the entire morning, sitting at the back, until shaken awake by his eager colleagues. Even the booming voice of James Allister, who upbraided president Borelles for not letting him speak "despite the fact I have been here since five past nine" - could not awake our friend.
The main issue of the debate, on Europe day, was that of the constitution; there was little on health, but the Austrian presidency had provided a useful briefing paper which allowed one to speculate. Namely, on the following.
Judicial cooperation in civil matters would, under the constitution, work on the basis of codecision between parliament and council, where the council has to act in a qualified majority. The exception is family law where there has to be unanimity among member states. With 25 member states of widely different cultural morals on marriage, cohibitation, abortion etc this is unlikeIy to happen. As MEP and constitutional expert Richard Corbett has noted "Abortion is not in the original treaties and is unlikely to be given thelack of consensus on these issues." But it is not impossible. If the constitution ever happened, article III-69 allows nominated areas of family law to be legislated on via parliament “if there are cross border implications”
Well, abortion has cross border implications, if two estranged partners come from different countries and the woman chooses to have the abortion in a more liberal country. In fact, abortion tourism is itself a cross border activity. So will that mean a harmonisation in the abortion laws? Well, there has to be unanimity among council first, so that is unlikely to happen.
Just as well perhaps. There has been since the end of communism a surge in conservatism on abortion across the east bloc, and also in Italy.
Here are a few examples
In March, the centre right government in Slovakia collapsed after a conflict between the two major governing parties over a draft agreement with the vatican that could restrict abortions. The SKDU and the KDH, which are both parties that have the name Christian in them, had worked out a draft agreement with the Vatican that the Slovak government would not insist that hospitals run by the Catholic church has to perform artificial abortions or assisted fertilisations”.
The SKDU wanted to postpone the issue until September, but the more conservative KDH wanted a resolution immediately. New elections will be held in June.
This is a cultural sea change in Slovakia arguably related to the end of the secular communism. During that era, abortions were quite freely performed. Indeed, it used to be the main form of birth control since contraceptives were scarce. But since then the number of abortions has plummeted from 70,000 a year to about 20,000. Part of the reason is of course freer access to contraceptives: another reason could be - more church teaching, as the country turns against the loose morals of western culture that have swept through the country; and this time, unlike during communism, the church is not suppressed.
Slovak conservatives against abortion will find an ally in Poland’s ruling coalition, where the Justice and Law party’s president, the appalling Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is a staunch foe of abortion, a view shared by his twin brother president Lech. Poland has long had one of the most restrictive laws in Europe on abortion. This law will soon be examined by the European Court of Human rights, as Alicja Tysiac, a Polish mother of three who is nearly blind, has brought a suit against the Polish government - increasingly loathed across Europe - after doctors refused to terminate her third pregnancy even as they warned that giving birth would further damage her eyesight.
According to a recent report in the Associated Press, the laws could tighten even further. Both the Vatican and the US administration has given support to eastern Europe's anti abortion movements, the report says.
In Italy the recent election stirred up the abortion issue, as more and more hospitals refuse to carry out abortions for conscientious reasons. A recent documentary by the BBC said women are now having to go to Barcelona to have abortions before it is too late. Ireland and Malta have long banned abortion.
Perhaps it is just as well that these issues are legislated nationally, and set to be so for the forseeable future. But here is a thought: abortion as a pan European issue - and indeed other values - would pretty quickly create a single European political space. However unresolved and unresolvable, value politics and intese debates around it is what sets America apart from Europe. If after a serious threat to impose common abortion standards across the continent - countries agree to disagree, as the US states do - it might be unifying. Those who want a United States of Europe, for what it is worth, might start here.
The debate would be carried out a volume capable of keeping awake even student journalists.