Calls for Irish and Poles to lift abortion ban

Date: 27/06/02

By David Cronin

THE European Parliament will next week (4 July) hear calls for Poland and Ireland to lift their bans on abortion.

The two mainly Catholic countries are singled out in a report by Belgian Socialist Anne Van Lancker as the EU or applicant states with the most restrictive laws on terminating pregnancies.

The MEP wants colleagues to urge member and prospective states to make abortion 'legal, safe and accessible' to all women. Although her call has been endorsed by the Parliament's women's rights committee, it is expected to face opposition from conservative deputies.

Van Lancker stresses that abortion should not be promoted as a form of family planning and that governments should boost the provision of counselling on contraception and reproductive health.

She notes that the accession countries tend to have higher abortion rates but lower rates of contraception use than the EU 15. Of the countries concerned, the highest abortion level is in Romania with about 52 terminations of pregnancy per 1,000 women. Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary have rates of about 40 per 1,000, while the figure is 21 per 1,000 in Slovakia, Lithuania and Slovenia.

The Czech Republic has the lowest official abortion record among applicant states. At 17 per 1,000 women, it is around the same as the EU countries with the highest levels - Sweden, Britain and Denmark.

Within the Union, the smallest levels (seven per 1,000) are found in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Van Lancker regrets that in central and eastern Europe an abortion 'can in principle be obtained for very little money or for free, while contraceptives are as expensive as one third of one's salary'.

'This leaves little choice for most women.'

Visiting Brussels this week, Poland's Europe minister Danuta Hübner acknowledged there is a 'strong debate' to liberalise the country's abortion laws.

'But I don't think we can change [the law] before we join the EU,' she added.

The European Parliament is due to hear calls on 4 July 2002 for Poland and Ireland to lift their bans on abortion. The two mainly Catholic countries are singled out in a report by Belgian Socialist MEP Anne Van Lancker as the EU or applicant states with the most restrictive laws on terminating pregnancies.