EU is again trying to force pro-life countries like Poland to legalize abortion
The EU is pushing two amendments to an unrelated document on ‘victims of crime’ that would demand countries like Poland and Malta repeal their pro-life laws and fully legalize abortion.
European EU flags in
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Tue Jun 17, 2025 - 10:59 am EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) — Despite the fact that many member states restrict abortion, activists at the European Union are once again attempting to smuggle “abortion rights” into unrelated documents to undermine the pro-life regimes of nations like Malta, the only EU country where pre-born children are still fully protected in the womb. Activists are also hoping that this move will push Poland into legalizing abortion.
The Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, a legal think tank in Poland, raised the alarm in a report earlier this month titled “Attempt to Legalize Abortion at the EU Level Under the Guise of Caring for Crime Victims.” The EU is currently working on “a draft amendment to the directive on the rights of victims of crime” to improve on the original, which “focuses on improving existing procedures and encouraging member states to better safeguard the rights of victims, for instance by ensuring access to appropriate psychological support.”
However, as C-Fam and Christian Council International have extensively documented, abortion activists see every document, no matter how unrelated to the subject, as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the abortion agenda. In 2023, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality proposed several amendments that mark an abrupt departure from the purpose of the document:
(Amendment No. 8 to Recital 7) seeks to introduce a reference to the need to ensure: “access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including emergency contraception (…) and access to abortion care” (cf. European Parliament Amendments, COM(2023)0424, Amendment 8).
The second (Amendment No. 66 to Article 9(3)(b)) would oblige member states to provide: “access to comprehensive medical care services, including sexual and reproductive healthcare services, in particular access to safe and legal abortion care” (cf. European Parliament Amendments, COM(2023)0424, Amendment 66).
As the Ordo Iuris Institute noted, these amendments “would effectively compel member states with constitutional or legislative protections for unborn human life to legalize access to abortion, in clear conflict with their national sovereignty.” This, of course, is the reason the amendments were inserted. Pro-abortion or pro-LGBT language is frequently included in official documents; even if not referred to immediately, the language is like a time bomb, awaiting the moment when a progressive judge decides to make the case that “international obligations” demand that a nation’s policies be changed.
Both Amendment No. 8 and No. 66, however, “appear to contravene fundamental principles of EU law, especially the principle of conferral enshrined in Article 5(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU)” which states that: “Under the principle of conferral, the Union shall act only within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein.” EU member states are under no obligation, treaty or otherwise, to legalize abortion; the EU has no authority to compel member states to legislate on abortion, even though the EU elites would dearly like to obtain this power. It is the democratically elected politicians of member states who have the legal power to legislate on abortion.
For the time being, these two abortion amendments have not yet been approved in a plenary session of the European Parliament and have not been endorsed by the Council of the European Union. According to an analyst from Ordo Iuris, a vote in September appears likely after trilateral negotiations between the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council are completed.
If abortion activists get their way, the abortion amendments will be included – and they will provide rogue politicians like Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is seeking extra-legal ways to bring abortion to Poland after his attempt at legalization failed, with a new tool in their toolbox.
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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.
His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.
He is the author of The Culture War, Seeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of Abortion, Patriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life Movement, Prairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.
Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.
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- Abortion
- Abortion in Europe
- Contraception
- Eu
- European Parliament
- European Union
- Lgbt
- Malta
- Poland
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