Brussels, the quiet front line of Europe’s abortion wars

Conservative religious groups, US-linked think tanks and faith-based organisations are increasingly using the EU capital to push hardline anti-abortion views – blurring the line between belief, lobbying and politics

Emma Pirnay / Thomas Mangin – Euractiv
Jan 7, 2025

Brussels has become an unlikely hub for a well-funded conservative push against abortion rights, as religious organisations, lobby groups and foreign think tanks quietly expand their footprint near the EU’s centres of power.

In late September, American preacher Franklin Graham came to Brussels’ ING Arena to take centre stage at his Festival of Hope. A multimillionaire who inherited his father Billy’s evangelism empire, Graham is known for comparing abortion to “murder” and for his close ties to Donald Trump.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/news/ripe-for-harvest-brussels-growing-web-of-anti-abortion-religious-influence/

07.01.2026

Commentary

Camille Gervais

Center for Reproductive Rights

European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Franklin Graham

Heritage Foundation

My Voice My Choice campaign

Bwaila District Hospital overwhelmed with post-abortion cases

Sep 07, 2023
Malawi News Agency

District Nursing Midwifery officer at Bwaila hospital, Bertha Mwale Kaudza, says the hospital is overwhelmed with abortion cases as it gets about 268 post-abortion cases per month referred to the facility, most of which are complications emanating from unsafe abortions.

The Officer said this during a study tour that Family Planning Association of Malawi, FPAM in conjunction with European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) organized for Members of Parliament (MPs) from European Countries to appreciate how sexual and reproductive health issues are facilitated in the country.

Continued: https://malawi24.com/2023/09/07/bwaila-district-hospital-overwhelmed-with-post-bortion-cases/

07.09.2023

News

Bertha Mwale Kaudza

Bwaila Hospital

European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Family Planning Association of Malawi

The mental health cost of Poland’s abortion ban

Seven months after severe restrictions against abortion came into effect, women are struggling with the emotional toll of the near-total ban.

by Ylenia Gostoli
22 Aug 2021

When Dominika Biernat took to the streets last October, joining the huge public protests against Poland’s near-total ban on abortion, little did she know that in a few months she would become one of its victims.

A single woman and a successful actress with
one of Warsaw’s most renowned theatre companies, her pregnancy was not planned.
But the father was a good friend and when she found out, the 39-year-old
thought it could be one of her last chances to become a mother.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/8/22/the-mental-health-costs-of-polands-abortion-ban

22.08.2021

Commentary

Featured

Abortion Network Amsterdam

All-Poland Women's Strike

anti-choice misogyny

Catholic Church

conscientious objection

Dominika Biernat

Dr Maciej Socha

European Court of Human Rights

European Parliament

European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights

FEDERA

Federation of Women and Family Planning

Law and Justice party

Milena Kwiatkowska

Neil Datta

omphalocele

Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture

Ordo Iuris International Law Center

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

severe fetal abnormality

travelling for abortion

Abortion pill reversal’ spreading in Europe, backed by US Christian right

New investigation shows how a US Christian right group is pushing an ‘unproven, unethical’ treatment to ‘reverse’ abortions

Claire Provost
25 March 2021

“You are the first client I personally have worked with in Germany, but we have assisted many women all over Europe,” a US-based nurse told an openDemocracy undercover reporter, posing as a woman who had taken the first, but not the second, pill required to have a medical abortion.

The nurse then emailed this reporter instructions on how to take a controversial ‘treatment’ that claims to be able to ‘reverse’ abortions. Our reporter subsequently received dosage information to take to a local hospital or pharmacy in order to get the medication needed.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/abortion-pill-reversal-spreading-in-europe-backed-by-us-christian-right/

‘Absurd’ rules obstruct abortion access in Italy during COVID-19

‘Absurd’ rules obstruct abortion access in Italy during COVID-19
Abortion has been legal in Italy for 40 years but guidelines say medical terminations must occur in hospitals – now overwhelmed by the pandemic. Italiano

Francesca Visser
3 April 2020

As coronavirus infections spread throughout northern Italy, Lisa* got pregnant. In her late 40s, with two children, a precarious job and poor health, she said: “Unfortunately I realised I was pregnant unexpectedly, above all at my age”.

She decided to have an abortion, which has been legal for most of Lisa’s life. But these services are hard to access even in ‘normal’ times. Many doctors refuse to provide them, and unlike in other European countries, medical abortions in Italy are only available at hospitals, and only up to seven weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/italy-access-abortion-during-covid/

Inside Italian public hospitals, I saw how a US-linked anti-abortion network is ‘humiliating’ women

Inside Italian public hospitals, I saw how a US-linked anti-abortion network is ‘humiliating’ women
An Italian federation of anti-abortion activists, linked to the US religious right, is “infiltrating” hospitals to stop abortions. I saw them in action. (In Italiano).

Francesca Visser
9 March 2020

At 8am on a winter Friday morning, the road to the San Pio hospital in Benevento, a small city in southern Italy, is covered by mist. The hospital’s corridors are quiet, except on the second floor, where abortion-related visits are scheduled to start.

More than forty years after abortions were legalised in Italy, they remain hard for women to access – especially in the south, where most doctors refuse to perform them. In 2017, the entire Benevento province was briefly left with no abortion provider after the only non-refuser at the San Pio hospital retired.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/inside-italian-public-hospitals-i-saw-how-a-us-linked-anti-abortion-network-is-humiliating-women/