Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 8 June 2022 - Strasbourg

Global threats to abortion rights: the possible overturn of abortion rights in the US by the Supreme Court (debate)

  Terry Reintke (Verts/ALE). – I’m sorry, I’m not going to take off the cloth right now, and I hope it’s okay for colleagues. So again ...

(In response to clapping from the floor)

Are you seriously going to keep clapping until I take this off? Colleague?

(In response to continued clapping from the floor)

Okay, then I’m going to speak against this noise.

First of all, abortion is a fact. Millions of people end their pregnancy each year. Criminalising abortion does not lower the number of abortions, it just makes them illegal and very often unsafe. Thirdly, and this is important for me, unsafe abortions are a leading, yet preventable, reason for maternal death.

So, if this was about life and health, the answer to the problem would actually be obvious: providing safe and legal access to abortion care, providing safe and legal access to contraception, providing safe and legal access to sexual education and to universal healthcare. But it is not! Because it is about exercising power: power over other people’s bodies, power over other people’s life choices, power over reproduction.

I am not a vessel to supply infants. I and only I have the right to decide over my uterus, my ovaries and my body. Until this is the case in Europe, in the US, and all over the world – and colleague, also to you specifically – we are going to continue to fight here in this Chamber and everywhere around the world. I salute the brave people in the US fighting for this, in Europe and all over the world.

(Cheers from the floor)

(The speaker agreed to respond to a blue—card speech)