Abortion in Europe varies considerably between countries and territories due to differing national laws and policies on its legality, availability of the procedure, and alternative forms of support for pregnant women and their families.
In most European countries, abortion is generally permitted within a term limit below fetal viability (e.g. 12 weeks in Germany and 12 weeks and 6 days in Italy, or 14 weeks in France and Spain), although a wide range of exceptions permit abortion later in the pregnancy. The longest term limits – in terms of gestation – are in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands, both at 24 weeks of gestation.
Abortion is subsidized or fully funded in many European countries. Grounds for abortion are highly restricted in Poland and in the smaller jurisdictions of Monaco, Liechtenstein and Malta, and abortion is prohibited in Andorra and Vatican City.See table below for a full outline of abortion laws by jurisdiction in Europe. In France and Luxembourg, abortion is enshrined as a constitutional right.
The European Court of Human Rights, summarising its abortion-related case law, in the Vo v France ruling in 2004, noted the "diversity of views on the point at which life begins, of legal cultures and of national standards of protection" and therefore, in a European context, the nation-state "has been left with considerable discretion in the matter."
History Abortions have taken place either within or outside the law throughout European history, alongside initiatives by opponents of abortion to provide alternatives where a pregnancy is difficult or unwanted. These have included kinship care by families and friendship circles in every culture, the adoption and fostering of alumni children in Roman society, and the oblation of children who were given into the care of monastic institutions if a family was unable to provide adequate care. In the modern era, formal support services have included adoption, fostering and foundling hospitals.
Ancient Greece and Rome Debates around abortion, pregnancy and the beginning of life were common in Greek and Roman philosophy and medicine, and would have also been known in cultures which have not left a written record. The medical writer Soranus of Ephesus wrote in the early 2nd century AD:
Much of what is known about the methods and practice of abortion in Greek and Roman history comes from early classical texts. Abortion, as a gynecological procedure, was primarily the province of women who were either midwives or well-informed laypeople. In his Theaetetus, Plato mentions a midwife's ability to induce abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.Plato (1921) []. "149d". Theaetetus. in Harold North Fowler. Plato in Twelve Volumes. 12. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Johannes M. Röskamp, Christian Perspectives On Abortion-Legislation In Past And Present (GRIN Verlag 2005 A fragment attributed to the poet Lysias "suggests that abortion was a crime in Athens against the husband, if his wife was pregnant when he died, since his unborn child could have claimed the estate."
Tertullian, a 2nd- and 3rd-century Christian theologian, described surgical implements which were used in a procedure similar to modern dilation and evacuation.Tertullian (1885) []. "Tertullian Refutes, Physiologically, the Notion that the Soul is Introduced After Birth". A Treatise on the Soul. in Philip Schaff. Ante-Nicene Fathers. 3. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
Development of Christian perspectives An early Christian understanding of preventing abortion and infanticide was outlined in the 1st century Didache, which was published in Syria or Palestine and became widely available in Europe with the growth of the early Church.
Restrictions on abortion have generally corresponded with laws and societies influenced by Christianity or where a substantial number of health professionals refuse to perform abortion due to a personal conscientious objection which is often, but not always, related to religious faith.
Pope John Paul II outlined Catholic teaching on abortion and support for a definition of life beginning at conception in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae and through the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Eastern Orthodox Christianity has similarly strongly condemned abortion. The Russian Orthodox Church's Social Concept states:
Following the Reformation, Protestants also affirmed life before birth and opposed abortion, although individual Protestant churches have adopted differing positions on the grounds on which abortion should or should not be permitted. John Calvin, for example, wrote:
The bishops of the Anglican Communion expressed opposition to abortion at the 1930 Lambeth Conference. The 1958 Lambeth Conference's Family in Contemporary Society report affirmed the following position on abortion and was commended by the 1968 Conference:
Development of other faith and secular perspectives Islamic and Jewish perspectives on abortion differ according to the scholarship followed. All Islamic schools of thought agree that abortion is recommended when the mother's life is in danger as the mother's life is paramount. The author of Sahih al-Bukhari (Book of Hadith) writes that the unborn child is believed to become a living soul after 120 days of gestation."(The matter of the Creation of) a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in 40 days(some say 120), and then he becomes a clot of thick blood for a similar period, and then a piece of flesh for a similar period. Then Allah sends an angel who is ordered to write four things...then the soul is breathed into him"
Abortion has been questioned from a secular perspective, drawing on modern understandings of science and human rights, although the potential to legalise and increase the availability of abortion was supported by secular and libertarian feminists and socialists from the mid-19th century onwards. The 1871 Paris Commune, for example, declared:
Eastern Europe
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the first country in Europe to legalise abortion in 1920 and was followed by other Soviet Union republics. However, between 1936 and 1955, abortion in the Soviet Union was highly restricted due to medical concerns and its impact on population growth.
Under eugenics laws in Nazi Germany, abortion was severely punished for women considered to be Aryan (racially superior). However, abortion was permitted on wider and more explicit grounds if the unborn child was believed to be deformed or disabled or if a termination otherwise was deemed desirable on eugenic or racial grounds, including forced abortion on Polish and Jewish women.
Abortion law became more liberalised in Eastern Europe in the 1950s after the installation of communist regimes across the Eastern Bloc. The reintroduction of abortion in Soviet law in 1955 was accompanied by similar changes in:
Hungary – 1953Hungary - ABORTION POLICY - United Nations Poland and Bulgaria – 1956 Czechoslovakia and Romania – 1957Kligman, Gail. "Political Demography: The Banning of Abortion in Ceausescu's Romania". In Ginsburg, Faye D.; Rapp, Rayna, eds. Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995 :234-255. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE KIE/49442.
After the fall of communism, most of Eastern Europe continued with liberal abortion laws except for Poland, where abortion is allowed only in cases of risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Abortion in cases of an abnormality in an unborn child was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Poland in 2020.
While abortion is more widely available in Hungary and Slovakia, the Constitution of Slovakia describes human life as "worthy of protection already before birth" and the Constitution of Hungary states that "embryonic and foetal life shall be subject to protection from the moment of conception."
Scandinavia
Sweden was the first liberal democracy in Europe to legalise abortion, in 1938; this move was followed by the introduction of limited abortion laws in Denmark in 1939,The rocky road to abortion on demand Finland in 1950,Pirkko Niemelä. 1988. "Finland." Pg. 152-69 in International Handbook on Abortion. Ed. Paul Sachdev. New York: Greenwood Press and Norway in 1964. More liberal abortion laws were introduced in Norway in 1964, Finland in 1970, and Denmark and Iceland in 1973.
Greenland has followed Denmark's liberal policy on abortion, and has at times experienced more abortions than live births taking place, whereas the Faroe Islands have maintained a more conservative approach; the issue was transferred to the Faroese Parliament (Løgting) in 2018.See references in Abortion in Denmark article.
The Parliament of Norway (Storting) legislated in 2015 that an unborn child is presumed to be viable at 21 weeks and 6 days unless there are specific reasons otherwise.Forskrift om svangerskapsavbrudd (abortforskriften) § 18 (archive) The law was clarified as survival after abortion was recorded in some cases at 22 or 23 weeks of gestation.Christine Svendsen (12 May 2012) Aborterte fostre levde i over en time før hjertet hadde sluttet å slå NRK. Retrieved 3 January 2013
Western Europe The Abortion Act 1967, in Great Britain, was the first major liberalisation of abortion law in Western Europe. English law had previously allowed for abortion on limited grounds under the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929 (also protecting the life of the pregnant woman) and from 1938 under the Bourne judgment in cases where a pregnancy would result in a pregnant woman becoming a "mental and physical wreck".R v Bourne 1 KB 687, 3 All ER 615, Court of Criminal Appeal Abortion continued to be limited to those grounds in Northern Ireland as the issue was devolved to the Northern Ireland Parliament.The Government of Ireland Act 1920 transferred matters of criminal law to Northern Ireland, governed by the socially conservative Ulster Unionist Party until 1972, and Southern Ireland which subsequently became the independent the Republic of Ireland under Catholic influence. The UK Parliament decided not to impose changes in abortion law but proceeded with liberalisation in 2019 when the locally-elected Northern Ireland Assembly was not operating.
Abortion on request during the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy was permitted in East Germany from 1972. The same policy was enacted in West Germany in 1974 but was ruled unconstitutional in 1975 by the Federal Constitutional Court as it infringed on the right to life of the unborn child. A revised law, with restrictions on abortion, was introduced in 1976.
The court ruled that a "life developing in the mother's womb is under the protection of the Constitution as an independent legal interest" and that the "protective duty of the State prohibits not only direct governmental encroachments upon the developing life but, in addition, commands the State to adopt a protective and encouraging role in regard to this life." This obligation was balanced with the rights of the mother – therefore permitting abortion in certain circumstances – although with the protection of fetal life, in principle, taking precedence.
The law on abortion in France was liberalised in 1975 and the changes in France and Germany were followed by similar changes in the law elsewhere in Europe: Austria – 1975Austria. Federal Law of 23 January 1974. (Bundesgesetzblatt, No. 60, 1974.) Italy and Luxembourg – 1978 Netherlands and Portugal – 1984 Spain – 1985 Greece – 1986 Belgium – 1990 Switzerland – 2002Full vote results by Swiss canton: http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/va/20020602/can487.html