A revived debate on abortion in Europe

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia - The abortion debate in Europe - long thought to be settled in favor of liberal abortion laws - has been rekindled by the eastward expansion of the European Union. Slovakia and its much larger neighbor, Poland, have been at the forefront of a new conservatism that is ruffling more than a few feathers in Western Europe's bastions of liberalism.

"They are changing the climate of the debate," said Krzysztof Bobinski, director of Unia i Polska, a research center in Warsaw. "There is no reason why we shouldn't have this debate ... but it is making some people (in Western Europe) a little nervous."

In Slovakia, a socially conservative country where more than 70 percent of the population identifies itself as Roman Catholic, it is not surprising that the governing coalition is dominated by two parties with the word "Christian" in their names.

But it was a surprise when the center-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda collapsed last month in a dispute between Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) and the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) over a draft agreement with the Vatican that would restrict abortions.

The agreement recognizes "the freedom of conscience in the protection and promotion of values intrinsic to the meaning of human life" and guarantees that the Slovak government will not "impose an obligation on the hospitals and health-care facilities founded by the Catholic Church ... to perform artificial abortions or assisted fertilizations."

The SDKU wanted to postpone debate on the treaty until after elections in September, but the more conservative KDH decided to force the issue and insisted that the government sign the treaty immediately. Dzurinda refused; new elections will be held in June.

During the communist era, Slovakia, then part of Czechoslovakia, adopted very liberal abortion laws. Conventional methods of contraception were scarce and expensive, and abortions became commonplace. But since the fall of communism, Slovakia's abortion rate has plummeted.

"In the early '90s, there were about 70,000 abortions a year. Now it's less than 20,000," said Rastislav Bednarik, a sociologist at the Center for Work and Family, a government agency.

Bednarik attributes the drop to the use of contraceptives and to church teachings. "The law stayed the same, but people began understanding what abortion means," he said.

Olga Pietruchova, director of Pro-Choice Slovakia, called the decline in abortions a "very positive development" that could be attributed mainly to the availability of contraceptives.

"There's no reason to push for an abortion ban because Slovak women do not use (abortion) as a method of family planning," she said.

The SDKU, eager to steer the debate away from abortion, argued that the "freedom of conscience" clause was overly broad and could allow the church to interfere in matters that were strictly secular.

"It could mean that our courts would not only have to adhere to our laws but also the teachings of the Catholic Church," said Pavol Kubovic, SDKU vice chairman.

In the European Union, the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a watchdog group of lawyers, has raised concerns that Slovakia might run afoul of the EU's human-rights standards if it signs the Vatican agreement.

"The right to religious conscientious objection may be and should be respected, but with safeguards that make it possible for women to seek legal abortion," the EU panel's chief, Olivier De Schutter, told the BBC. Although Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania and other socially conservative countries from the former Soviet bloc have been members of the EU for less than two years, they are not afraid to swim against the currents of political correctness, nor are they intimidated by their critics.

"Unbelievably arrogant people" is how Vladimir Palko, former Slovak interior minister and a senior KDH official, described the EU's liberal establishment. " ... The arrogance of today's liberals in Europe is equivalent to the communists' of 60 to 70 years ago," Palko said.

After the fall of communism, Poland adopted one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. Although polls show a majority in favor of loosening the law, newly elected President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads the ruling Law and Justice Party, are staunch foes of abortion.

But the Polish law will soon come under scrutiny of the European Court of Human Rights. Alicja Tysiac, a Polish mother of three who is nearly blind, has brought a suit against the Polish government after doctors refused to terminate her third pregnancy even as they warned that giving birth would further damage her eyesight.

While the abortion debate in Europe does not yet push the political hot buttons that it does in the United States it is heating up.

Pro-Choice Slovakia's Pietruchova said both sides of the debate in Eastern Europe are receiving tactical and logistical support from abroad, but most of the support for the anti-abortion side comes from the United States. She also said the conservative tenor of the Bush administration has had an impact on the European debate. "After the '90s, which were very liberal, there was the start of a backlash in Europe. When Bush was elected ... it gave arguments to those who were already conservative," she said.

It is uncertain whether the aggressive style of U.S. anti-abortion groups will play in Europe. "The pro-life movement here is not as radical as it is in America," said Msgr. Marian Gavenda, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Slovakia.

As a rule, European conservatives do not pursue their causes with the evangelical fervor that is common in U.S. politics.

"Europeans don't think religion should be politicized," Pietruchova said. "But the Vatican wants to use Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and some others as a kind of Trojan horse to get inside the EU."

Europe is currently aborting itself out of existence.
Their birth rate is so low that they can't sustain themselves over the long term.

4 posted on 03/10/2006 9:45:26 AM PST by Tanniker Smith (I didn't know she was a liberal when I married her.)

From a conservative UK perspective Poland has been a great help to the EU putting the blocks on iy's rampaging Liberal agenda. New Europe has vigor and isn't cosseted by the PC agenda. They know what it's like to be oppressed and value real freedom. They have rejected the idea of an EU foreign minister and same sex marriages. We could learn a lot...

5 posted on 03/10/2006 10:18:30 AM PST by vimto ("Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton." King George III)

Culturally speaking, they are aborting themselves out of existence. That and they're just not having children, or having them very late in life. They have an extremely low birthrate so there are less and less children supporting more and more elderly. When the elderly begin dying off the fact that they haven't had children will begin to weigh very heavily. Growing populations, such as the Arabs and the Turks, will grow rapidly in numbers and influence. This is only a matter of decades away from happening actually.

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