A draft resolution insisting that abortion is a fundamental right, and attacking the right of doctors to conscientiously object to facilitating abortions is set to be debated in the European Parliament later this month.

The resolution, introduced by Portuguese socialist MEP Edite Estrela, and adopted by the Committee on “Women’s Rights and Gender Equality” also claims that adolescents have a “right to confidentiality” as regards ‘sexual and reproductive health’ implying that parents have no right to be informed.

The resolution will be debated on the 22nd of October, according to the European Centre for Law and Justice, which advocates for life and family issues at European level.

Vicky Claeys, President of the European Section of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) has publicly claimed to have drafted the resolution during the presentation to the European Parliament of an IPPF report on women’s access to modern methods of contraception.

This resolution also calls on the European Union to fund abortion in its Foreign and Development Aid Policy.

The resolution condemns “the abuse of conscientious objection” in relation to abortion and calls on Member States to “regulate and monitor the use of conscientious objection”.

It also condemns “medically unnecessary waiting periods” that is to say a period of reflection between the request for an abortion and the abortion itself and what it calls “overly restrictive interpretations of existing limits” to abortion in Ireland, Malta and Poland.

The resolution also falsely claims that abortion is a human right guaranteed by international law.

The draft resolution goes beyond the competences of the European Union which has recognised that it is for Member States to develop and implement policy on abortion.

The European Parliament is not empowered to make policy for the European Union; that power is reserved for the European Commission.

The European Commission confirmed last year that it does not intend to complement national health policies in this respect.”

The European People’s Party (EPP), the majority party of the centre-right, has not yet said that it oppose the resolution.