On 22 May, the Commission for Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities of the European Parliament will vote on a draft report presented by Van Lancker (Pse, Belgium) on health and sexual and reproductive rights. The report which makes reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, to the Declaration and Programme of action of the UN Conference on population and development in 1994, and to the Declaration and programme of action of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 will tackle the question by starting out from the affirmation that “women ought to have the freedom to make their own informed decisions as far as their own sexual and reproductive health is concerned and have all the facilities and means to do so”. According to Van Lancker, research in the field demonstrates that “the number of abortions carried out is lower in the countries that combine a very liberal legislation in terms of interruption of pregnancy with effective sex education, high-quality family planning services and the free availability of a wide range of contraceptives”. To prevent risks to the health of women, the report proposes recourse to so-called “emergency contraception”. It invites member states and candidate states (within which ‘high abortion rates’ and ‘low levels of recourse to contraception’ are registered) to implement measures to ensure the personal and reproductive health of women, in liaison with the organizations of civil society. In spite of the fact that the Report declares that “abortion should not be promoted as a method of family planning”, the draft Resolution “recommends that, with a view to safeguarding women’s health, abortion must be legal, safe and accessible to everyone” and “invites the governments of the member states and of the candidate countries to abstain, in any case, from persecuting women who have undergone illegal abortions”.
