In Belgium abortion is legal 12 weeks after conception, with many women travelling across the border to the Netherlands in order to terminate pregnancies later.
More than 300 women in Belgium, including those facing financial hardship, travel to the Netherlands to terminate their pregnancies each year.
The Netherlands, which allows abortion up to 22 weeks after conception, provides women with the ability to terminate pregnancies later than in Belgium — where the limit is 12 weeks.
Over twenty pro-abortion associations in Belgium have drawn attention to complications in the country’s legal framework on abortion. In addition to women having only 12 weeks to terminate their pregnancies, a reflection period of 6 days is mandatory between the first consultation and the start of procedure. Women who don’t observe this reflection period face significant penalties.
Family planning centres say that these legal conditions are incompatible with the lived experience of many women, and call for an extension on the time limit within which a woman can terminate her pregnancy.
Frédéric Brichau, co-ordinator of the Family Planning Centre in Namur, says that each situation should be understood with “flexibility”, and that a reflection period of six days is unproductive as “perhaps the woman has already thought for a fortnight before contacting us or has taken a pregnancy test the same morning before contacting us.”
Legal limit varies across Europe
Belgian women are not the only ones put into the complicated position of having to travel across European borders in order to safely terminate a pregnancy.
The legal time limits vary between European countries, ranging from 10 weeks in Portugal to 24 weeks in the Netherlands.
The majority of countries have set the limit at 12 weeks. Spain and Austria allow abortion up until 14 weeks and have eschewed a mandatory reflection period. In Bulgaria, the limit is 20 weeks. In Poland, a country with a strong Catholic tradition, abortion is illegal apart from in cases where the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act or the woman’s life is in danger.
Lina Gálvez, chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, told Euronews that, “those who have enough money can go to another country, but for those who don’t have the resources this is not always an option. This prevents abortion being a universal right for all women throughout the world”.
Non-binding efforts
The European Parliament has put forward legislative initiatives to try to ensure free and safe abortion for all women, regardless of their country of origin.
Among these efforts is the 2021 Matić Report, which urges member states to “decriminalise abortion” and ensure that it is safe by considering it “a fundamental right” so that its denial can be considered “an act of gender-based violence.”
Most recently, in April 2024, the European Parliament approved the inclusion of abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
However, none of these collective initiatives are binding with abortion laws remaining at the discretion of individual member states.
