The fight for safe and legal abortions in the EU remains

24 September
by Thea Jürgensen

The European Union is based on key values such as freedom and equality. These values should apply to every citizen, no matter the gender. Even though it’s 2025 and men and women should have the same rights, there is still some work to be done to make sure that everyone is free and equal.

Women across Europe are still fighting for their reproductive rights and access to legal abortions. The absence of access to safe abortions services contributes to women being forced into motherhood or losing their lives due to being denied the procedure. However, European countries have adopted different approaches in this regard.

Continued; https://www.treffpunkteuropa.de/the-fight-for-safe-and-legal-abortions-in-the-eu-remains?lang=fr

24.09.2025

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Nearly half of Polish women voted for Karol Nawrocki, dashing hopes for abortion reform

Activists are disillusioned by the new president’s plan to stop liberalisation.

Aleksandra Krzysztoszek, Euractiv Poland
Jun 10, 2025

The election of conservative firebrand Karol Nawrocki as Poland's president is slamming the brakes on plans to legislate for legal abortion, leaving reproductive rights activists disillusioned and looking abroad once more.

Throughout the election campaign, Nawrocki left little doubt about his stance on abortion, pledging not to sign a proposed law by Donald Tusk's centrist coalition that would restore the so-called abortion compromise which would legalise abortion in cases of rape, severe fetal abnormalities, or threat to the mother’s life.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/nearly-half-of-polish-women-voted-for-karol-nawrocki-dashing-hopes-for-abortion-reform/

New UN Report: Polish Abortion Law Violates Human Rights

A comprehensive investigation reveals the devastating consequences of Poland's restrictive abortion law on women's health and bodily autonomy, requiring urgent legal reform.

Center for Reproductive Rights
Sept 13, 2024

In a groundbreaking report, the United Nations (UN) has denounced Poland’s restrictive abortion law for causing severe human rights violations. The three-year investigation, conducted by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), reveals the devastating toll the law is taking on women’s health and rights in Poland and calls for swift and sweeping legal reform to legalize and fully decriminalize abortion.

The CEDAW inquiry into Poland’s abortion law was initiated after submissions by the Center for Reproductive Rights, in collaboration with Polish civil society organizations including the Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA) and the Karat Coalition. This effort sought to draw urgent international attention to Poland’s severe abortion restrictions and their harmful impact on women’s health, rights, and bodily autonomy over decades.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/un-cedaw-report-poland-abortion/

13.09.2024

News

CEDAW

Center for Reproductive Rights

FEDERA

Foundation for Women and Family Planning

Karat Coalition

Katrine Thomasen

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

NI secretary can direct establishment of abortion services, judge rules

Anti-abortion group claimed only elected representatives in North should decide on issue

Tue, Feb 8, 2022,
Alan Erwin

The Northern Ireland secretary has the legal authority to direct the establishment of abortion services in the region, a judge as ruled at Belfast High Court.

Mr Justice Colton rejected a challenge by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) to Brandon Lewis’ powers to impose a deadline on Stormont for putting in place a centralised system.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ni-secretary-can-direct-establishment-of-abortion-services-judge-rules-1.4796919

08.02.2022

Featured

News

Brandon Lewis

commissioning abortion services

Justice Colton

NI Human Rights Commission

Society for the Protection of Unborn Children

SPUC

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Paraguay’s Draconian Abortion Law Punishes Rape Survivors

Strict abortion prohibitions do not stop women and girls from having abortions; they just force them to have unsafe abortions, putting their lives and health at risk.

Tamara Taraciuk Broner, Santiago Menna – Human Rights Watch
January 5, 2022

In mid-November, a Paraguayan government hotline received a report of suspected sexual abuse against a 13-year-old Indigenous girl in a community near the border with Brazil. The case was assigned to Roselí Echeguren, a lawyer in a government office for the protection of children’s rights in Paraguay.

Echeguren told Human Rights Watch that community members had noticed that the girl had started to wear a girdle. Echeguren went to see the girl and took her to the hospital, where doctors confirmed that she was pregnant. The girl told her she had kept silent “out of fear.”

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/05/paraguays-draconian-abortion-law-punishes-rape-survivors

Change is inevitable: people demand the human right to access safe abortion across Europe

Amnesty International
September 28, 2021

Europe has been at the forefront of the global trend towards the liberalization of abortion laws for more than 60 years. But there is still work to do to give all women and people who can become pregnant access to safe and legal abortion.

Almost all EU member states have now legalized abortion on request or on broad socio-economic grounds and, in the last few years, several European countries have enacted important progressive reforms or taken steps to remove harmful procedural and regulatory barriers that can impede access to abortion.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/09/change-is-inevitable-people-demand-the-human-right-to-access-safe-abortion-across-europe/

Japan urged to abolish third-party consent from abortion law

Restrictions amount to ‘sexual assault’ on women by Japanese state, say rights campaigners

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Mon 27 Sep 2021

Women’s health campaigners have urged Japan’s government to amend a law that forces married women to seek consent from their husbands before they can have an abortion.

Japan is one of only 11 countries that require third-party consent for abortions, despite calls to end the practice by the World Health Organization and other groups.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/27/japan-urged-to-abolish-third-party-consent-from-abortion-law

27.09.2021

Featured

News

International Safe Abortion Day

Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Kazane Kajiya

Maternal Health Act

spousal consent for abortion

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

World Health Organization

Consent from domestic abusers not needed for abortion in Japan

June 28, 2021
By Naruha Yamasaki / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

The Maternal Health Law stipulates that doctors must obtain the consent of a pregnant woman and her spouse to perform an abortion. In March, however, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry spelled out new guidelines to the law that would allow victims of domestic violence to terminate a pregnancy without their spouse’s consent.

In addition to women being forced to bear a heavy mental and physical burden, this move was prompted by strong concern among medical staff who perform abortions at the risk of being sued by women’s husbands.

Continued: https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0007507681

28.06.2021

Featured

News

Japan Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Japan Medical Association

Kyoko Tanebe

spousal consent for abortion

spousal permission for abortion

Tamie Kaino

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

UK government moves to compel Northern Ireland to expand abortion services

By Reuters Staff
Mar 23, 2021

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government published legislation on Tuesday to hand it powers to compel Northern Ireland to implement more liberal abortion services, despite opposition from the region’s first minister and health minister.

Britain’s parliament voted in 2019 to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland, allowing terminations without restriction up to 12 weeks and with no time limit in the case of “severe foetal impairment or fatal foetal abnormality”.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-ireland-abortion/uk-government-moves-to-compel-northern-ireland-to-expand-abortion-services-idUSKBN2BF1ZP

23.03.2021

commissioning abortion services

Democratic Unionist Party

Jeffrey Donaldson

UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

New inquiry: Abortion law in Northern Ireland

New inquiry: Abortion law in Northern Ireland
The Women and Equalities Committee launches inquiry looking into abortion law in Northern Ireland.

20 September 2018

Background

In Northern Ireland, abortion is only legal in circumstances where the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy poses a serious, permanent or long-term risk to her health and wellbeing.

In 2016, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women conducted an inquiry on the subject of access to abortion in Northern Ireland. It concluded that the rights of women in Northern Ireland were being violated by restrictions on access to abortion, and argued that devolution of power over criminal law to the Northern Ireland Assembly did not remove the responsibility of the UK Government for this matter.

Continued: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/women-and-equalities-committee/news-parliament-2017/abortion-law-northern-ireland-launch-17-19/?mc_cid=b515a2798a&mc_eid=daef22644f