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Europe and North America

Council of Europe member states should guarantee ‘right to access to a safe and legal abortion’, says PACE

April 16, 2008
Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today called on the organization’s member states to decriminalize abortion, within reasonable gestational limits, if they have not already done so, and to guarantee women’s’ “right to access to a safe and legal abortion”.

The Assembly – which brings together national parliamentarians from 47 European countries, representing 800 million Europeans – adopted the resolution by 102 votes to 69 after a four-hour debate and deciding on 72 amendments.

The parliamentarians said that abortion should be avoided as far as possible and “in no circumstances be regarded as a family planning method” but that a total ban did not result in fewer abortions, leading instead to traumatic clandestine abortions and abortion “tourism”.

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