Catholic Church pushes its message
Elizabeth Bryant, Chronicle Foreign Service, Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Portugal — Pregnant with her third child in January, 36-year-old Maria Silva decided two were enough. In most European countries, the next step would have been simple: Check into a clinic for an abortion. But Silva lives in the northern Portuguese town of Aveiro, where seven women went on trial in late 2003 for having abortions. So instead, she followed step-by-step Internet directions on how to end her pregnancy.”I didn’t want this pregnancy,” said the married mother of two boys, speaking from her home about 40 miles from Porto, in the country’s northeast. “Now, I feel free, like a new person.”
Until recently Portugal and Ireland had Europe’s toughest abortion codes. But the European Union’s enlargement last year has changed the equation. Today, nine of the 25 EU members, including three newcomers, either restrict abortions or — in the case of Malta — ban them altogether. Some of the other seven new members have more restrictive laws after the first trimester. Interviews with more than two dozen European politicians, sociologists and activists on both sides of the abortion debate suggest an increasingly polarized region where secular and liberal values are clashing against those in conservative, Roman Catholic countries. While France recently marked 30 years of legal abortions and Spain is moving to relax its strict abortion laws, some countries — notably Poland and Slovakia — appear to be heading in the opposite direction.
“There’s no doubt there are more anti-choice forces at work in Europe (now) than over the last 20 years,” said Joke van Kampen, an Amsterdam-based consultant on sexual and reproductive rights, who is pro-choice. “Even in the Netherlands (which allows abortion on demand), there are some groups picketing in front of clinics. That would have been unheard of a few years ago.” To be sure, Europe’s anti-abortion movement has nowhere near the grassroots and political clout of its U.S. counterpart, which has found receptiveness in the Bush administration. In most Western European countries, its influence remains minimal. But anti-abortion advocates say they are powered not only by an increasingly activist Roman Catholic Church, but also by Europe’s low birth rates and concerns about human rights.
“I think Europeans are beginning to wake up,” said Brussels-based Emilia Klepacka, European director of the World Youth Alliance, a U.S. anti-abortion group. She estimates membership in the 5-year-old European branch at half a million. “Young people are fascinated by the whole concept of human dignity,” Klepacka said. “And many people are concerned about the fact that the European continent is dying, that there are fewer and fewer Europeans of working age. They’re beginning to rethink their approach toward the family.”
Even in Britain, where a 2001 abortion of a 28-week-old fetus with a cleft palate sparked controversy, anti-abortion activists claim public sentiment is shifting. In a poll taken in mid-March, 59 percent favored further restrictions on the time limit for abortions, now 24 weeks. “We believe people are rethinking their absolutist stance on abortions and women’s rights,” said Josephine Quintavalle, spokeswoman for the London- based Pro-Life Alliance. “The focus is moving from the mother to the child.”
Like a host of other social issues in Europe, the right to abortion is a national, not a regional, matter — underscoring the limits of the EU’s authority. Nonetheless, battles over the primacy of life vs. women’s choice have inevitably found their way into institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled last year against a fetus-rights case. Some pro-choice groups also believe the influence of conservative Eastern European lawmakers and Christian Democratic ones in the West may weigh in on issues like EU funding for family planning organizations in developing countries that offer abortion counseling or services.
Anti-abortion lawmaker Anna Zaborska of Slovakia was elected to head the European Parliament’s women’s committee in July, over strong objections. In Portugal, a conservative Catholic country of 10 million, abortions are allowed only to save a women’s life and mental health, or in cases of rape, incest or fetal impairment. Prime Minister-elect Jose Socrates has pledged to hold a referendum on whether to liberalize the code. But even his Socialist Party colleagues are split: The country’s former Socialist leader, Antonio Guterres, was an abortion opponent. “I myself have strong doubts about changing the law,” said 43-year-old Helena Vilaca, a Socialist Party member strolling the dusty, cobblestone streets of Porto one Sunday. “When I became a mother, I started to see life in a different way.”
Pro-choice groups estimate that several thousand Portuguese women go abroad for abortions each year, mostly to neighboring Spain, where similar abortion restrictions are interpreted more liberally. Some 20,000 to 40,000 women quietly search out medical help nearer to home or perform the procedure themselves. Silva found directions on how to terminate her pregnancy on the European Internet site of Women on Waves, which publishes directions in French, Spanish, Dutch and Polish, as well as Portuguese. Silva’s husband bought the abortion- inducing medication, Misoprostol, which is also used to treat ulcers, in a pharmacy, and the procedure went off without any complications. But Silva is still afraid to tell even close friends about it. “This is a very conservative society,” she said. Dozens of doctors, nurses and patients involved in illegal abortions have been hauled into court on charges that carry prison sentences. So far, however, virtually all of them, including those in the Aveiro trial, have been fined or acquitted. Even the Catholic Church has called for decriminalizing abortions, while supporting the current law. Most observers doubt that Portugal will follow the example of Spain, where Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has promised to drastically overhaul the country’s strict abortion legislation as part of far- reaching social reforms.
In Poland, the ruling Democratic Left Alliance Party has pushed back a long-promised pledge to loosen strict abortion laws until after fall elections. Surveys show most Poles support a looser code, but that sentiment doesn’t translate into public activism, women’s rights groups say. And the Roman Catholic Church remains a powerful political force there. “Politicians think it’s better to listen to what the church is saying, not the society,” said Wanda Nowicka, head of the Federation for Women and Family Planning. She estimates that up to 200,000 illegal abortions are carried out in Poland ever year.
Unlike Poland, Roman Catholic Slovakia has retained Communist-era laws allowing abortion on demand. Even so, pro-choice activists say, a growing number of doctors and hospitals refuse to perform abortions. The activists fear that Slovakia’s center-right government may revive talks on a proposed treaty with the Vatican, allowing medical practitioners to refuse to perform abortions on religious grounds. “It’s a political issue, because the country is really quite liberal,” said Olga Pietruchova, head of Bratislava-based Pro-Choice Slovakia. “On Sundays, most people go to shopping malls, not to church.”
Abortion laws in EU nations
Allowed on demand in first trimester or later: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden
Allowed for health, economic and social reasons: Finland, United Kingdom
Allowed for health reasons or in cases of rape, incest or fetal impairment: Cyprus, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Spain
Allowed only to save woman’s life (including from suicide): Ireland
Banned: Malta
Source: International Planned Parenthood Federation report, 2004
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Oľga Pietruchová 