An unprecedented effort to expand abortion rights throughout Europe has been launched by activists who have been fighting for reproductive freedom at the national level in their eight home countries. The campaign, which began on May 24th, 2024, aims to collect 1 million signatures within the next few months to pressure EU leaders into committing to making abortion accessible to anyone who cannot easily end an unwanted pregnancy where they live.
While legal abortion is generally available in the EU compared to the United States, there are some important exceptions. Poland and Malta have near-total abortion bans, while Austria and Germany generally do not provide free abortion care through national health insurance. In countries like Croatia and Italy, many doctors refuse to perform the procedure.
The activists behind the campaign believe that their effort could help shore up access to abortion for those who need it most. Their proposal for a European Solidarity Mechanism would help address these gaps by providing financial support for people to travel internationally for care if necessary. Activists are presenting their initiative as voluntary, with member states choosing whether or not to opt in. Those states that do participate “in the spirit of solidarity” could then receive financial support from the EU to cover the cost of abortion procedures for their residents, though not travel costs.
“What’s really special is it’s basically being built as the largest feminist movement in Europe, which is crazy and super tiring sometimes, and also really, really beautiful,” said Nika Kovač, a Slovenian activist leading the campaign. “In Europe, we are so often caught up in our own national context, and this is the first time I feel like we’re slowly coming out of it.”
Kovač told Vox that she decided to mobilize on a European-wide level after seeing the Supreme Court overturn legal abortion in the United States. “The whole idea for this campaign came from the despair in the US,” she said.
Kovač and her colleagues at Inštitut 8. marec, a Slovenian human rights group named for International Women’s Day, planned this citizen’s initiative in secret for about 18 months before recruiting international partners in late 2023. The core coalition now includes activists from Poland, Ireland, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia, and Finland.
They aim to collect 1 million signatures before the European parliamentary elections in June, which occur only once every five years. Collecting so many signatures in such a short time will be difficult, but if they are successful, it would be the fastest signature collection for a European Citizen Initiative (ECI) in history. Success is not inconceivable, given that the effort is being led by organizers with years of mobilization experience in their home countries.
Signature collection can be done both in-person and online, and activists are looking to organize at big upcoming events like May Day protests around Europe. The campaign officially launched on May 24th, but activists have already been collecting signatures since late 2023.
“One thing I can rely on is the stubbornness of these women,” Kovač said. “Europe is full of feminists who are just not willing to accept that in 2024, in Europe, women are still denied access to abortion.”
The proposed European abortion rights measure would work through the European Union’s existing legal framework. The EU, which is comprised of 27 member states, has authority to govern via international treaties, primarily in realms such as monetary policy, trade policy, environmental policy, and consumer protection. Any powers not covered by these treaties remain exclusive to the member states, and for years activists were told that reproductive rights were beyond the scope of what the EU could legislate on.
“So many European politicians and bureaucrats say nothing can be done in the context of abortion on the European level because it’s not directly one of the competencies of the European Commission,” Kovač explained. “So we had to do a lot of thinking and researching.”
The activists convened a group of international lawyers who helped them develop a novel legal strategy. They framed their citizens’ measure as one within the “public health” remit of the EU, an established official authority that allows the European Commission to support member states for a variety of purposes, including the protection and improvement of human health.
Even with broader grounds for legal exceptions within European countries, first-trimester bans in Europe continue to force thousands of people to travel internationally every year to terminate their unwanted pregnancies. A 2022 study by the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights looked at pregnant people who traveled from countries like Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, and Italy to the Netherlands or England for later abortion care. Over half of the pregnant people surveyed hadn’t learned they were pregnant until they were at least 14 weeks along, meaning they surpassed the limits in their home countries.
If the activists succeed in collecting enough signatures, then members of the European Commission would need to decide whether to support the citizens’ initiative, which would then require the European Parliament to vote on it. Activists aim to press all candidates running for European Parliament in June to clarify their stance on the proposal so that voters have that information when they go to the polls.
“It really will depend on what the next European Commission looks like, but the important thing for us is that this will go to them and they will need to speak to it and then do something,” Kovač said. “It’s really the first concrete solution for the people in Europe.”
The campaign has already gained support from several prominent European politicians, including Ska Keller, co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament, and Manon Aubry, a French MEP from the left-wing La France Insoumise party. The activists are hopeful that they can build on this momentum and collect the necessary signatures to force the EU to take action on abortion rights.
The launch of this campaign marks a significant moment in the fight for reproductive rights in Europe. If successful, it would be a major step toward ensuring that everyone in Europe has access to the abortion care they need.
