By Layli Foroudi and Paul Carsten
STRASBOURG, France, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The European Union's parliament voted on Wednesday in favour of a scheme that would enable women from nations restricting abortion to terminate pregnancies in another member state free of charge.
The "My Voice, My Choice" citizens' initiative proposes a fund from the EU budget to cover procedures for people from nations with near-total bans such as Malta and Poland or places where abortion is hard to access, like Italy and Croatia.
While the trend in Europe has been towards more accessibility for abortions, with the UK decriminalising it and France making it a constitutional freedom, there has been a surge in popular support for far-right parties, many of which oppose abortion.
After the parliament vote of 358 for and 202 against, the European Commission is to decide in March whether to adopt the proposal, though other citizens' initiatives have not been entirely successful.
Proponents of the initiative, including abortion rights campaigners and some members of parliament (MEPs) from the left to centre-right, say it should reduce unsafe practices and help women who lack funds for a procedure abroad.
Critics, including far-right and some centre-right MEPs, say the proposal interferes in national laws and traditional Christian values.
Under the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) mechanism launched in 2012, the parliamentary vote is advisory only but can influence the Commission decision.
'EU STANDS BY WOMEN'
"Today we show the world, but above all our citizens, that the EU stands by women. The EU stands for gender equality, and the EU is not afraid to fulfil all human rights, also women's human rights," Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani of the centrist Renew Europe group told reporters in Strasbourg.
In Poland, where abortion was outlawed in nearly all cases in 2021, abortion rights activists applauded the vote.
"With that resolution, it means that (Polish women) do not have to risk their lives in the Polish healthcare system," said Mateusz Bieżuński, a lawyer with Polish organisation Federa (Foundation for Women and Family Planning).
Jerzy Kwasniewski, of Polish anti-abortion group Ordo Iuris, said he viewed the vote as "contrary to European values" and expected the proposal to be rejected by the Commission.
In the lead-up to Wednesday's vote, opponents held events with anti-abortion rights federation One of Us and the European Centre for Law and Justice, an offshoot of the American Center for Law and Justice, which litigates on abortion cases, and was involved in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade case.
"Sending women to countries that are more liberal is an attack on national order," Elisabeth Dieringer of the far-right Patriots for Europe group, said in a parliamentary debate on the eve of the vote. "This ideological abuse of power is something that we're not going to accept at EU level."
(Reporting by Layli Foroudi in Strasbourg, Paul Carsten in Berlin, Anna Semczuk-Wlodarczak and Kuba Stezycki in Warsaw; editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Mark Heinrich)
