Before the vote, pro-life groups and Catholic leaders had urged the European Parliament to reject the report, presented by the Croatian politician Predrag Fred Matić.
The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI), based in Washington, D.C., described the document as “extreme” and “radical.”
The Secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) expressed alarm at the report, saying that that it was “ethically untenable” to classify abortion as an “essential” health service.
The Nordic Bishops’ Conference said that the report’s stance on conscientious objection “jeopardizes individuals’ entitlement to follow their conviction in moral and religious matters, placing them at risk of losing their job or even barring them from access to work in healthcare.”
The Matić Report, officially known as the “Report on the situation of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU, in the frame of women’s health,” was adopted by the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality on May 11.
Two Members of the European Parliament, Margarita de la Pisa Carrión and Jadwiga Wiśniewska, set out a “minority position,” arguing that the report had “no legal or formal rigor.”
“It goes beyond its remit in addressing issues such as health, sexual education, and reproduction, as well as abortion and education, which are legislative powers belonging to the member states,” they wrote.
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“It treats abortion as a purported human right that does not exist in international law. This is a breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the main binding treaties, as well as of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union.”
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), an NGO based in Strasbourg, France, suggested that the report’s supporters were seeking “to introduce a new norm without it appearing at first sight to be imposed.”
It said: “The choice of the institution in this strategy is not to be underestimated, because although the resolutions of the European Parliament have no binding legal value, they are the expression of an opinion that the Parliament wishes to make known.”
“A resolution may subsequently serve to politically legitimize action by the member states or the institutions; it is intended to produce practical effects.”
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