On Tuesday, the European Parliament held a hearing on the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) “My Voice, My Choice”, which calls on the European Commission to devise a funding mechanism to underwrite abortion provision across the entire EU.

As well as an attempt to push for more abortions, the initiative is also clearly designed to pressure countries like Poland and Malta to abandon the pro-life legal protections that they still provide to safeguard the lives of unborn babies. The “My Voice, My Choice” initiative also targets freedom of conscience protections for healthcare workers who don’t wish to participate in ending the lives of unborn babies.

In addition to the strident pro-abortion interventions at Tuesday’s meeting, thankfully, there were many strong pro-life contributions from pro-life MEPS, pointing out that far from being a human right, abortion itself represents one of the clearest and most self-evident violations of human rights imaginable. It was also mentioned that EU wide funding of abortion would directly violate EU law and directly undermine the principle of subsidiarity and disregard Member States’ sovereign authority in sensitive ethical matters.

It’s expected that the European Commission will make its position known in early March on whether to adopt or reject this extreme and excessive funding proposal.

Between now and then, as pro-life supporters, we need to write letters and emails to the European Commissioners, most especially, Michael McGrath, EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, calling on them to roundly reject the idea of an EU funding mechanism to underwrite abortion provision across Member States.