ECLJ Publication - Law and Prevention of Abortion in Europe

While abortion keeps being at the heart of current affairs, the ECLJ is happy to announce the publication of “Law and Prevention of Abortion in Europe” by Sallux Publishing. This book is the result of more than ten years of experience of the ECLJ in the defence of life and Human dignity. It is a groundwork for our future actions.

This book exposes the social reality of abortion, answers the obvious objections and gives concrete propositions aiming at reducing the recourse to abortion. It is very dense and there are numerous resources, analyses and answers to the current debates on abortion.

Moreover, the aim of this book is to bring society to consider abortion in the perspective of concrete prevention more than of abstract right, and to give the conceptual and legal bases to such a policy of prevention of abortion.

This book wants to be realistic and aims at giving the basis of legal developments on an in-depth factual study of causes and consequences of abortion, written in the light of numerous recent scientific researches. These causes and consequences incite to consider abortion not as an abstract freedom but much more as a social and public health problem, requiring a prevention policy. Such a policy was in fact what Simone Veil wanted when she refused any right to abortion and wanted only to tolerate it as the last solution, then a lesser evil. It is also and still how international and European laws consider it, both of them offering a strong legal support to a prevention policy, and even to a “right not to abort”.

Against Mrs. Veils’ declared intention, abortion slowly became not only tolerated but a freedom. This change of perspective had deep implications for the whole society and disrupted the legal order further than on the question of birth regulation and the question of the situation of women, this change also affects other rights and principles, such as the prohibition of sexual and genetic discriminations, the rights to life, to freedom of conscience, and also to freedom of speech and manifestation.

The central chapter of this book, “The Prevention of Abortion: Guaranteeing the Social Right Not to Abort” gives the bases to a policy of prevention of abortion and proposes concrete measures in light of what is successfully done in other countries. The situation of women can get better, and the law get its coherence back, only by reintroducing the question of abortion in the prospect of concrete prevention, as opposed to abstract freedom. This is how several European countries have managed to significantly reduce the recourse to abortion.

The book can be ordered in English with Sallux Publishing or in French online on the website of the publisher. Here is a general presentation of the book.