Abortion Accessibility under European Union Law: A Review of Potential Legal Bases

Abstract

This dissertation was inspired by the conviction that, as noted by several entities at the national and international levels alike, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy should not be seen as a practice to be prohibited, but as a right to be protected. Long-standing warnings have been made about the negative effects that restrictions on abortion access may have on women’s health and human rights. Yet, abortion care continues to be hampered in too many countries around the world, either de jure or de facto. Hence, the desire to investigate how the legal system of the European Union (EU) may facilitate access to safe abortion. The strength of said legal system lies in its being applicable to several States, thus enabling a greater number of individuals to benefit from any guarantees that might stem therefrom. By contrast, its major limitation resides in the absence of an explicit right to abortion among its provisions. However, this very limitation spurred a thorough analysis that led to discovering potential legal bases in fields ranging, for instance, from the internal market to asylum and immigration, from consumer protection to anti-discrimination. Accordingly, the first two Chapters will analyse the bearing of internal market law on abortion access, while the third and last Chapter will examine less visible - yet important - potential legal bases in the wider Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and last, but definitely not least, in EU Fundamental Rights.