How the overturn of Roe v. Wade sparked a new campaign for abortion rights across Europe

A massive effort to expand access throughout Europe launches today.

An unprecedented effort to expand abortion rights throughout Europe launches today, led by groups that were already fighting for reproductive freedom at the national level in their eight home countries. The My Voice, My Choice campaign aims to collect 1 million signatures in the next few months to pressure leaders of the European Union to commit to helping anyone who is not easily able to end an unwanted pregnancy where they live.

While legal abortion is supported throughout Europe and is broadly more accessible and affordable in the EU compared to the United States, there are some exceptions. Poland and Malta have near-total abortion bans, Austria and Germany generally do not provide free abortion care through national health insurance, and in countries such as Croatia and Italy, many doctors refuse to provide the procedure. Activists say their effort could help shore up access for nearly 20 million women.

Their campaign for a European Citizens’ Initiative would help address those gaps by providing financial support for people to get care internationally if needed. Activists are presenting their initiative as voluntary — member states can choose to opt in. Those states that do participate “in the spirit of solidarity” could then receive financial support from the EU to terminate pregnancies for those who lack access to safe and legal abortion where they live. The proposed EU mechanism would cover the cost of the procedure but not travel costs.

“What’s really special is it’s basically being built as the largest feminist movement in Europe, which is crazy and super tiring sometimes, and also really, really beautiful,” said Nika Kovač, a Slovenian activist leading the campaign.

Varja Jovanovič

Kovač told Vox she decided to mobilize on the European-wide level after seeing the Supreme Court overturn legal abortion in the United States. “The whole idea for this campaign came from the despair in the US,” she said.

Kovač and her colleagues at the 8th of March Institute, a Slovenian human rights group named for International Women’s Day, planned this citizens’ initiative idea in secret for about 18 months, and then started recruiting international partners in late 2023. The core coalition now includes activists from Poland, Ireland, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia, and Finland. They aim to collect 1 million signatures in advance of the European parliamentary elections in June, which occur only once every five years.

Collecting so many signatures in such a short time will be difficult, and if they’re successful, it would be the fastest signature collection for a European Citizen Initiative in history. Still, success is not inconceivable given that the effort is being led by organizers with years of mobilization experience in their home countries. Signature collection can be done both in-person and online, and activists are looking to organize at big upcoming events like May Day protests.

“One thing I can rely on is the stubbornness of these women,” Kovač said. “In Europe we are so often caught up in our own national context, and this is the first time I feel like we’re slowly coming out of it.”

How the proposed European abortion rights measure would work

The European Union, which is comprised of 27 member states, has authority to govern via international treaties, primarily in realms such as monetary policy, trade policy, environmental policy, and consumer protection. Any powers — officially known as competences — not covered by these treaties remain exclusive to the member states, and for years activists were told that reproductive rights were simply beyond the scope of what the EU could legislate on, meaning that abortion had to be left to each sovereign country.

“So many European politicians and bureaucrats say nothing can be done in the context of abortion on the European level because it’s not directly one of the competencies of the European Commission,” Kovač explained. “So we had to do a lot of thinking and researching.”

They convened a group of international lawyers who helped develop a novel legal strategy, positioning their citizens’ measure as one within the “supporting competence” of the EU, an established official authority that allows the European Commission to support member states for a variety of purposes, including the protection and improvement of human health.

Even with broader grounds for legal exceptions in European countries with earlier gestational age limits, first-trimester bans in Europe still force thousands of pregnant people to travel internationally every year to end their unwanted pregnancies.

One study published in 2023 looked at pregnant people who traveled from countries like Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, and Italy to the Netherlands or England for later abortion care. Over half of the pregnant people surveyed hadn’t learned they were even pregnant until they were at least 14 weeks along, when they had already surpassed the limits in their home countries.

If activists succeed in collecting enough signatures, then members of the European Commission would need to decide if they would support the citizens’ initiative. Activists aim to press all candidates running for European Parliament in June to clarify their stance on the proposal so voters have that information when they go to the polls.

“It really will depend on what the next European Commission looks like, but the important thing for us is that this will go to them and they will need to speak to it and then do something,” Kovač said. “It’s really the first concrete solution for the people in Europe.”