Bashes Bush administration’s Mexico City Policy STRASBOURG, July 3, 2002 (LSN.ca) – The European Parliament voted 280 to 240 (with 28 abstentions) today to adopt a resolution calling on all member nations, and those seeking European Union membership to provide abortion. The resolution, known as the Van Lancker report after the Belgian MEP who drafted it, says “in order to safeguard women’s reproductive health and rights, abortion should be made legal, safe and accessible to all.” The document calls on Europe to “promote emergency contraception” and goes so far as to demand that abortifacient drugs be available “over-the-counter and at affordable prices, as standard practice within sexual and reproductive health care.” It calls on governments to allow fertility treatments for homosexual couples by asking them to “provide access to sexual and reproductive health services without any discrimination based on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status.”
Notably, the report bashes the Bush administration’s Mexico City Policy banning funds to abortion-promoting groups and calls on the European Commission to “fill in the budgetary gap provoked by the Mexico City Policy.” Euro-fam, the European pro-life group which has closely monitored the European Parliament, notes that while the report does not have the force of law, it does have interpretative force. It notes that since the report specifically includes abortion in “reproductive health services” the EU position on interpreting international documents with that language may now include abortion.
See the full EP resolution on line at: https://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A5-2002-0223+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=3&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y See the Euro-Fam evaluation of the report: https://www.euro-fam.org/spip/article.php3?id_article=63 See the EP press release on the resolution: https://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/OM-Europarl?PROG=PRESS-DAILYNB&L=EN&PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+PRESS-DAILYNB+DN-20020703-1+0+DOC+SGML+V0//EN&LEVEL=1&REFERER=X&NAV=X#SECTION10