The US-based Centre for Reproductive Rights (CRR), well known for its strategy of fabricating ‘rights by stealth’ in the US and world-wide, is once again making an appearance in Europe to speak on behalf of ‘civil society’. It seems that the international abortion lobby is better able to mobilise so-called ‘non-governmental organisations’ for its cause than real citizens with real lives.
The letter launched by CRR from ‘170 civil society organisations’ in support of the illegal abortion tourism initiative ‘My Voice, My Choice’ may seem impressive at first glance due to the large number of supporting organisations, but on closer inspection it turns out to be much less so.
The large number of signatory NGOs is obviously meant to conceal the fact that the abortion-tourism initiative received significantly less support than ONE OF US collected in 2014 for the directly opposite proposal to ban the financing of abortions from EU funds. This clear defeat at the ballot box cannot, of course, be glossed over by such a PR stunt.
It is also worth taking a closer look at the list of signatory organisations: if one does so, it quickly shrinks.
To cite just one obvious example: the list names no fewer than fifteen family planning centres (“centre de planning familial”) located in Belgium, all of which are essentially branches of one and the same structure.
It also includes many groups that are in no way identified by any activity related to maternal health, but are primarily committed to gay rights, feminism, or a militant struggle against religion disguised as ‘humanism’. One could therefore question the ‘relevance’ of these groups with regard to an issue on which they have no expertise whatsoever, but which should in fact be about protecting the lives of children and pregnant women as best as possible. The various gay associations and feminist groups do not contribute to this goal; rather, they are primarily concerned with the socio-political goal of restricting the right to life of unborn children.
Many of the groups, such as the Centre for Reproductive Rights, are not really based in the EU (but in a variety of countries, including the US, the UK, but also Bosnia, Georgia, Moldova, Macedonia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc.). They are international actors who represent their funders rather than actual ‘civil society’ (whether based in Europe or elsewhere).
In this context, it is of course interesting to inform the public about who these donors are. In particular, it is interesting to examine which of the listed ‘civil society organisations’ obtain their funding primarily from (only) two sources: George Soros’ Open Society Foundation (OSF) and the CERV programme, through which the European Commission finances ‘civil society’ in order to sway it.
Just as an example (since we do not have the resources to contact each of the signatory organisations individually):
The pro-abortion lobby IPPF EN (International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network) received an operating grant of 962 940,80 € for 2026 alone, amounting to roughly 80% of its overall budget of 1 203 676,00 €. This funding is part of a multi-annual committment for 2026-2028), and has already been going on for many years. However, many of the signatory NGOs of CRR’s open letters are in fact part of IPPF’s “European Network”, and it is very likely that, through “re-granting” (permitted under the EU’s Financial Regulation), they too benefit from the Commission’s generous support.
It is also possible, if not indeed likely, that thanks to this “re-granting” mechanism the EU taxpayer has unknowingly funded the ECI “My Voice, My Choice”, which raises very serious legal questions with regard to whether this funding of NGOs is not resulting in a brazen and deliberate falsification of the democratic process: is the European Commission, throug this fake citizens’ initiative”, in fact lobbying itself? How is it possible that EU citizens, most of them un knowingly, can be forced to fund, through their tax Euros, the activities of lobby groups whose agendas they disagree with?
The same type of funding sustains the gay rights lobby ILGA Europe (in 2026, 1 760 000,00 € of their overall budget of 2 200 000,00 € come as an operating grant from the European Commission at the EU taxpayers’ expense!), and they too have many affiliates among the 170 signatories of the “civil society” letter to support the abortion initiative. (One might ask the question here: when a gay rights group receives funding from the European Commission, should the permissible use of these funds not be limited to the promotion of gay rights?)
Another big recipient of EU funding for “civil society” is EWL (European Women’s Lobby), with a 2 087 904,00 € overall budget for 2026, to which the European Commission contributes 1 670 323,20 €. And here again, this group has a lot of its affiliates among the 170 signatories of the letter supporting the abortion initiative.
It should be noted that the “operating grants” these organisations are receiving are neither tied to any specific projects, nor are the recipients held responsible for any particular outcomes. They can use the money for renting office space, paying salaries, buying computer equipments, covering travel expenses, etc. There is practically no control.) However, a group receiving 80% or more of its budget from the European Commission is certainly not “civil society”. Instead, it is simply an outpost of the European Commission, operating at “arm’s length”, so that the Commission can claim to be not directly responsible for whatever the recipient organisation does. Such a system does not invigorate and strengthen civil society, but, on the contrary, has the effect of undermining it by creating a radically uneven playing field. The abortion issue is a glaring example: the organisers of “My Voice, My Choice”, despite having received lavish EU funding, have mobilized far less EU citizens than ONE OF US did in 2014 without receiving one cent from the Commission.
The influence of Soros funding is less obvious, and it has been reduced following OSF’s strategic decision to disinvest in the EU and steer his funding into poorer regions of the world (where less money buys more political influence). Nonetheless, it is a known fact that Soros has played a decisive role in building the NGO landscape that is nowadays kept alive by the EU through its CERV programme.
To summarize, it can safely be said that the funding of NGOs by the EU is a form of political ventriloquism. It maintains alive powerful structures that, despite having no democratic mandate and no volunteers, falsely pretend to represent “civil society”. The creation of a large number of affiliate groups serves to create the false impression of “pluralism” and of massive social support. But in fact those organisations represent hardly anyone.
The truth is at the ballot box. More than 1,7 million Europeans (genuine ones, men and women of flesh and blood) have said that they want the EU to abstain from funding abortions. It would be grossly anti-democratic for the Commission not to listen to them but to an artificially created “civil society” with no social base.
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