According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute in Brussels, the International Planned Parenthood Federation has issued a document entitled, “Why we need to talk about abortion.” It calls for the legalization of abortion in the European Union. While acknowledging that each member state has “ultimately responsibility” for abortion legislation, the IPPF-Europe urges the European Union Commission and the European Parliament to act “despite this mandate’ to “drive the issues forward.” In recent years, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe have adopted two non-binding pro-abortion documents that have been used domestically and by foreign agents to promote abortion in E.U. members where abortion remains illegal, most notably in Poland and Malta, but also Ireland, Portugal and Slovakia. As C-Fam’s Maciej Golubiewski notes, “Why we need to talk about abortion” demonstrates that the IPPF considers “the institutions of the E.U. as useful lobbying targets to put the ‘right to abortion’ on the E.U. agenda.”
