The document passed by PACE (102 votes for, 69 against) states that "abortion can by no means be considered a family-planning method" and, "insofar as possible, it should be avoided". Then it claims that "all the means that are compatible with women’s rights must be put into practice to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortion". This is followed by another consideration: "Although abortion is legal in the vast majority of the member states of the CoE", in many of these countries "some conditions hinder actual access to risk-free abortion". In addition, in those countries in which abortion is legal, the lack of health care facilities, the lack of doctors who accept practising abortion, health advice made compulsory "make access to abortion more difficult". According to the resolution passed by the assembly, prohibiting abortion would not result in a reduction in the number of terminations, but "would lead instead to backstreet abortion, which is more traumatic and dangerous". One of the objections raised by the MPs is that the document never speaks of the "right to life" of the unborn child, the traumas and sufferings that women who abort have to endure, the father’s right to have his say on the mother’s decision to have an abortion.
