Missed opportunity

The Council of Europe’s missed opportunity for women

De Facto
Liamy MacNally

A report last week highlighted that women may face mental health risks following an abortion. It was a rare report in that it dealt with effects rather than ‘rights’. The abortion debate usually centres on one side or the other – pro-life or pro-abortion. The starting point in each argument usually defines the outcome of the person’s position.
Last week the Royal College of Psychiatrists challenged the long-held claim that any mental health risk to women outweighed the guilt or regrets after an abortion. It is a strong statement from such an august body at such an appropriate time, especially when the British Government is opposed to current moves to reduce the time limit for abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks.
Then the Council of Europe stated that abortion should be accessible in all member states and decriminalised. All of a sudden the politicians have become the new guardians of life and death. It is strange that psychiatrists are warning of the consequences of abortion while the politicians are calling for abortion to be made more widely available.
THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE
The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 and ‘seeks to develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals’. The Council of Europe has 47 member countries, including Ireland (with one applicant country, Belarus. This country’s special guest status has been suspended due to its lack of respect for human rights and democratic principles.) There are also five observer countries – the Holy See, the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico.
The aims of the Council of Europe are to protect human rights, pluralist democracy and the rule of law; to promote awareness and encourage the development of Europe's cultural identity and diversity; to find common solutions to the challenges facing European society, such as discrimination against minorities, xenophobia, intolerance, bioethics and cloning, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, organised crime and corruption, cybercrime, violence against children; to consolidate democratic stability in Europe by backing political, legislative and constitutional reform.
The Council of Europe is made up of the Committee of Minister (the Organisation’s decision-making body, composed of the 47 Foreign Ministers or their Strasbourg-based deputies like ambassadors/permanent representatives); the Parliamentary Assembly (the driving force for European co-operation, grouping 636 members – 318 representatives and 318 substitutes – from the 47 national parliaments); the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (the voice of Europe's regions and municipalities, composed of a Chamber of Local Authorities and a Chamber of Regions); and finally the 1800-strong secretariat recruited from member states, headed by a Secretary General, elected by the Parliamentary Assembly.
The Council’s budget for this year is over €200 million. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMITTEE
It was the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men that drew up the abortion report.  The following is the summary of their report:
“Abortion is legal in the vast majority of the Council of Europe member states. The Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men considers that a ban on abortions does not result in fewer abortions, but mainly leads to clandestine abortions, which are more traumatic and more dangerous. By the same token, the Committee notes that in many of the states where abortion is legal, numerous conditions are imposed which restrict the effective access to safe abortion. The Parliamentary Assembly should therefore invite the member states of the Council of Europe to:
– decriminalise abortion, if they have not already done so;
– guarantee women's effective exercise of their right to abortion and lift restrictions which hinder, de jure or de facto, access to safe abortion;
– adopt appropriate sexual and reproductive health strategies, including access of women and men to contraception at a reasonable cost and of a suitable nature for them as well as compulsory relationships and sex education for young people.” 
RESEARCH
The level of ‘research’ tells its own story. The following is an extract from the explanatory memorandum by Mrs Gisela Wurm, the Committee Rapporteur:
“1. In January 2006, our colleague and Chairperson of the Sub-Committee on Violence against Women, Ms Carina Hägg (Sweden, SOC), tabled a motion for a resolution on ‘Abortion and its impact on women and girls in Europe’ (Assembly Document No. 10802). I was appointed Rapporteur for report on 9 March 2006; the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee was seized for opinion.
2. In February 2007, the Committee decided to change the title of the report to ‘access to safe and legal abortion in Europe”, and held a hearing on the issue. The minutes of the hearing have been declassified and are available from the Secretariat (AS/Ega (2007) PV 3 addendum).’
One wonders if the Committee actually concentrated on the impact of abortion on women, their original title, would they have come up with a different conclusion. In any case they would have to tread the same waters that the Royal College of Psychiatrists have. The explanatory memorandum continues:
“A wide range of experts took part in the hearing, representing different views on abortion: the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the Inter-European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (IEPFPD), the International Federation of Professional Abortion and Contraception Associates, ‘Aktion Lebensrecht für Alle’ (Germany), the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), ‘Abortion Rights’ (United Kingdom) and a former judge at the European Court of Human Rights.”  
Topping the ‘experts’ list is Planned Parenthood, one of the largest providers of abortion in the world.  Why was information not sought from women who have been affected by abortion, like the group, Women Exploited By Abortion (WEBA)? Speaking with those who have been directly affected by abortion rather than those who profit from abortion would have been more appropriate.  
SCARLET SURVEY
Kevin Sherlock has written on the effects of abortion on women. In The Scarlet Survey he states that in America: “Abortion on demand has been legal nationwide for a generation ... supposedly to protect women and girls from being damaged and abused by back-alley abortionists. But the public record shows about the only difference between those criminals and the abortion providers of today is an ad in the Yellow Pages… In lawsuit after lawsuit, women across the country accuse abortion providers of the same kinds of incompetence, corner-cutting, lack of concern, and risk to life that many have made against the ‘back alley abortionists’ of the days when abortion on demand was illegal. Abortion providers are some of the least capable doctors in America. Across America, abortion providers have been arrested for rape, sexual assault, homosexual assault, and child pornography. Some did time for these crimes. Many other abortion providers are enabling statutory rape, incest, and rape of young girls by destroying the evidence and refusing to report the sex offences to the police…Planned Parenthood isn’t squeaky-clean, either. They stand accused of nationwide abortion malpractice and of committing many, many health code violations ... and of foisting abortion and/or birth control on women of colour…” 
If this is happening in America is Europe any different? The Council of Europe, including Irish political members, missed an opportunity to be brave, unlike the Royal College of Psychiatrists.