Socialist women challenge right wingers on abortion referendum

7 February 2007


The Party of European Socialists has challenged right-wing male MEPs on their stance on the abortion referendum in Portugal – and challenged them to declare if they are proposing to limit abortion in their own countries.

The President of PES Women, Zita Gurmai, has written to most of the 51 MEPs who signed a declaration criticising the referendum, and dared them to justify some of the highly questionable assertions made in the declaration.

In the letter Zita Gurmai writes “The declaration refers to the ‘devastating individual, social and demographic effects the liberalization of abortion in some of our countries has had.’

But what are the ‘devastating’ social effects of abortion and in which countries? I do not believe you can point to any devastating social effects in any country in Europe.”

“The declaration also claims that ‘the limitation of abortion is currently on the agenda of most European countries’. Please tell me in which country the limitation of abortion is currently being proposed? Are you proposing the limitation of the right of women in your own country to choose whether to have an abortion?  Is your party proposing any such limitation?”

Zita Gurmai said “How can MEPs from countries such as the UK and Germany oppose allowing women in Portugal to have the same rights as women in their own country?”  

“All but one of the 51 MEPs who signed this declaration are from right-wing political groups that are all in favour of economic liberalization and like to portray themselves as champions of individual freedom. But faced with allowing Portuguese women the right to choose they want to impose their morality.”

“I notice that 80 per cent of the MEPs who signed are men. But it is even more astonishing that some women MEPs want to deny Portuguese women the right that they themselves have.”

Please find below a list of the MEPs who signed the declaration, and a copy of the letter sent by Zita Gurmai to the signatories.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Julian Scola, Press Officer, Party of European Socialists, Rue du Trône, 98 - B-1050 Brussels, , Mobile +32 486 117 394

 
Read the letter  sent by Zita Gurmai to the signatories 


The MEPs who signed the declaration include:

Alfonso Andria

Bastiaan Belder

Johannes Blokland

Elmar Brok

Simon Busuttil

Carlo Casini

Carlos Coelho

Nirj Deva

Den Dover

Jonathan Evans

Ingo Friedrich

Jan Hudacky

Carlos Iturgaiz Angulo

Filip Kaczmarek

Urszula Krupa

Romano Maria La Russa

Marcin Libicki

Peter Liese

Patrick Louis

Sergio Marques

Maria Mauro

Jaime Mayor Oreja

Miroslav Mikolasik

Cristiana Muscardini

Angelika Niebler

Ljudmila Novak

Sean O’Neachtain

Marie Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou

João de Deus Pinheiro

Umberto Pirilli

Zita Plestinska

Javier Pomes Ruiz

Bernd Posselt

Luis Queiro

José Ribeiro E Castro

Zuzana Roithova

Wojciech Roszkowski

José-Ignacio Salafranca

José Silva Peneda

Kathy Sinnot

Boguslaw Sonik

Peter Stastny

Laszlo Surjan

Konrad Szymanski

Antonio Tajani

Witold Tomczak

Paul Van Buitenen

Ari Vatanen

Riccardo Ventre

Anna Zaborska

Zbigniew Zaleski