Apparently, the European Commission’s position on the abortion initiative is not yet a foregone conclusion. The abortion lobby is mobilising all its forces to put pressure on the Commission, with advertisements, open letters and even threats of legal action. And Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, whose ideological bias on this issue is no secret (but in fact a logical necessity, because the appointment of an Equality Commissioner can in itself have no other purpose than that of institutionalising the ideological bias that Ms. Lahbib stands for!) , is optimistic that she will be able to overturn the leaked draft, which appears to deny the organisers of the initiative some of what they are demanding, at the last minute.
Will there be a contentious vote within the Commission, and does the Commissioner hope to win over a majority of her colleagues to a counter-proposal, which would mean that the Commission would, as one must assume, override the expertise of its own Legal Service?
105 members of the Green, far-left, social democratic and liberal factions in the European Parliament have written an open letter to the Commission with a somewhat threatening undertone, in which they warn of legal steps they might take if the Commission does not bend to their will:
“We wish to make it expressly clear that, should the Commission decide not to pursue the objectives of this initiative or fail to follow up with concrete measures or proposals for action, we, as democratic representatives of European citizens, together with other democratic actors, would be compelled to examine further political and legal avenues to ensure that the expressed will of European citizens and the European Parliament is duly respected and that legitimate expectations are met.”
This letter is primarily a regrettable reminder of the fact that politicians from supposedly ‘centrist’ parties such as S&D and Renew have no qualms about allying themselves with extremist forces when it comes to fighting against the most fundamental of all human rights, namely the right of all people to life. This is indeed something that all democratic forces in society should watch closely. Even so, the list of signatories comprises just one-seventh of the European Parliament, – not totally insignificant, but still not much more than a fringe.
However, the threat of legal action is unlikely to impress the Commission, because it must expect that if it announces the creation of a special fund to finance abortions, it will also face lawsuits whose chances of success would be much greater than if it refrained from making such an announcement. In fact, the passage reported by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, allegedly contained in a draft of the statement expected for tomorrow, according to which EU funds could already now be used to finance abortions, suggests a clearly illegal use of these funds, which could have very unpleasant legal consequences for the politicians and officials responsible.
The main ‘argument’ in the MEPs’ letter is that “a refusal to act upon the initiative that has satisfied all Treaty conditions would raise serious questions regarding compliance with the principles of participatory democracy and sincere cooperation between institutions. It would also signal that the voices of citizens can be formally acknowledged yet politically disregarded.” This may be so, but it is disingenuous when it comes from politicians or political groups who very clearly did not stand in for that view when ONE OF US had collected more than 1.7 million signatures – far more than the pro-abortion initiative has collected – to ask the EU for a clear legal commitment to not misuse EU-funds for the financing of any action that involves or presupposes the destruction of human embryos. If one of the two opposing demands has democratic legitimacy, it clearly is not the one that the pro-abortion MEPs are seeking to promote.
In any case, the CJEU has already ruled on the matter. In Patrick Grégor Puppinck and Others v. European Commission (Case C-418/18 P), decided in December 2019 by the CJEU Grand Chamber, it was clearly stated that the Commission’s reply to a successful ECI is a legal act that is subject to judicial review, but that the simple fact of an ECI having crossed the threshold of 1 million statements of support did not oblige the Commission to follow up with a legislative proposal. Any legal action that the 105 MEPs say they are contemplating is therefore bound to remain unsuccessful – and the European Commission is therefore not likely to be impressed by such a threat.
By contrast, it is – for the reasons we have already explained at length on these pages – also very clear that by funding abortion tourism in order to flout Member States’ laws, the European Commission would be committig a gravely illegal act, that even a law court stacked with pro-abortion judges would find very difficult not to condemn, for fear of undermining whatever is left its own credibility and prestige as a respectable judicial institution. This fear of very serious legal and political consequences, rather than lack of sympathy with the unhinged pro-abortion agenda, is what mainly seems to have determined the draft communication that “My Voice, My Choice” finds so upsetting.
one-of-us.org 