Resolution on including the right to abortion in the EU Fundamental Rights Charter

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on including the right to abortion in the EU Fundamental Rights Charter.

The resolution stated that access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including safe and legal abortion care, constitutes a fundamental right. In a landmark vote on 4 March 2024, French lawmakers enshrined the guaranteed freedom to have an abortion in the French Constitution. France is the first country in the world to explicitly make abortion a constitutional right. This constitutional revision aims to establish a safeguard in the context of the backsliding on abortion rights in the EU and globally, including in the US, Poland, Hungary and Malta.

Since the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French Constitution, similar initiatives have already been considered in other countries such as Spain and Sweden, which shows the need for a European response to the pushback on gender equality and SRHR backsliding and to constitutionally protect the rights that are under attack.

Parliament urged the European Council to launch a Convention for the revision of the Treaties to add sexual and reproductive healthcare and the right to safe and legal abortion to the Charter and amend it as follows:

Article 3

Right to the integrity of the person and to bodily autonomy

2a. Everyone has the right to bodily autonomy, to free, informed, full and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and to all related healthcare services without discrimination, including access to safe and legal abortion.

The resolution called on the Member States to:

- fully decriminalise abortion in line with the 2022 WHO guidelines, and remove and combat obstacles to safe and legal abortion and access to SRHR;

- guarantee access to safe, legal and free abortion care, to pre-natal and maternal healthcare services and supplies, voluntary family planning, contraception and youth-friendly services, and to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, without discrimination;

- ensure access to the full range of SRHR services including comprehensive, age-appropriate and evidence-based sexuality and relationship education for all, high-quality, accessible, safe and free contraceptive methods and supplies, and family planning counselling, paying special attention to women of colour, Roma women, older women, women with lower education levels, LGBTIQ+ people, women with disabilities, adolescents, migrant women, including irregular migrants, and single women;

- increase their spending on programmes and their direct subsidies to structures, including healthcare and family planning services and other organisations active in this field;

- make abortion methods and procedures an obligatory part of the curriculum for doctors and medical students, in particular gynaecology students;

- remove the legal, financial, social and practical barriers and restrictions on abortion, including those disproportionately affecting women in poverty, in particular racialised women, including black women and ethnic minority women, and women of single-parent households;

- improve access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including abortion, through the EU4Health programme.

Lastly, Parliament called on Poland and Malta to repeal their laws and other measures concerning bans and restrictions on abortion.