Abortion in Europe

Map showing the legality of abortion on request in Europe.

  Total ban or prohibited

  Only available in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother

Legal to term limit of:

   10 weeks

   11 weeks

   12 weeks

   13 weeks (3 months)

   14 weeks

   18 weeks (4 months)

   20 weeks

   24 weeks (5½ months)

     12–28 weeks
     12 weeks (or later if authorised)
     10 weeks (or later if authorised)
     12 weeks (elective procedure)
     Must be approved by committee

Abortion in Europe varies considerably between countries and territories due to differing national laws and policies on its legality, availability of the procedure, and alternative forms of support for pregnant women and their families.

In most European countries, as illustrated in the map and in the country-by-country table below, abortion is generally permitted within a term limit below fetal viability (e.g. 12 weeks in Germany and Italy, or 14 weeks in France and Spain). The longest term limits – in terms of gestation – are in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands, both at 24 weeks of gestation.

Grounds for abortion are highly restricted in Poland and in the smaller jurisdictions of Monaco, Liechtenstein and the Faroe Islands. Abortion is prohibited (as an intentional action to cause a miscarriage) in Andorra and Malta. However, abortions are de facto allowed in both countries to save the life of the pregnant woman through observance of the principle of double effect.

History

Debates around abortion, pregnancy and the beginning of life were common in Greek and Roman philosophy and medicine, and would have also been known in cultures which have not left a written record. The medical writer Soranus of Ephesus wrote in the early 2nd century AD:

A contraceptive differs from an abortive, for the first does not let conception take place, while the latter destroys what has been conceived ... But a controversy has arisen. For one party banishes abortives ... because it is the specific task of medicine to guard and preserve what has been engendered by nature. The other party prescribes abortives, but with discrimination ...

An early Christian understanding of preventing abortion and infanticide was outlined in the 1st century Didache.

Restrictions on abortion have generally corresponded with laws and societies influenced by Christianity or where a substantial number of health professionals refuse to perform abortion due to a personal conscientious objection which is often, but not always, related to religious faith.

Pope John Paul II outlined Catholic teaching on abortion and support for a definition of life beginning at conception in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae and through the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity has similarly strongly condemned abortion. The Russian Orthodox Church's Social Concept states:

Since the ancient time the Church has viewed deliberate abortion as a grave sin. The canons equate abortion with murder. This assessment is based on the conviction that the conception of a human being is a gift of God.

Following the Reformation, Protestants also affirmed life before birth and opposed abortion, although individual Protestant churches have adopted differing positions on the grounds on which abortion should or should not be permitted. John Calvin, for example, wrote:

The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.

Islamic and Jewish perspectives on abortion differ according to the scholarship followed.

Abortions have taken place either within or outside the law throughout European history, alongside initiatives by opponents of abortion to provide alternatives where a pregnancy is difficult or unwanted. These have included kinship care by families and friendship circles in every culture, the adoption and fostering of alumni children in Roman society, and the oblation of children who were given into the care of monastic institutions if a family was unable to provide adequate care. In the modern era, formal support services have included adoption, fostering and foundling hospitals.

Eastern Europe

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the first country in Europe to legalise abortion in 1920 and was followed by other Soviet Union republics. However, between 1936 and 1955, abortion in the Soviet Union was highly restricted due to medical concerns and its impact on population growth.

Under eugenics laws in Nazi Germany, abortion was severely punished for women considered to be Aryan (racially superior). However, abortion was permitted on wider and more explicit grounds if the unborn child was believed to be deformed or disabled or if a termination otherwise was deemed desirable on eugenic or racial grounds, including for Polish and Jewish women.

Abortion law became more liberalised in Eastern Europe in the 1950s after the installation of communist regimes across the Eastern Bloc. The reintroduction of abortion in Soviet law in 1955 was accompanied by similar changes in:

• Hungary – 1953
• Poland and Bulgaria – 1956
• Czechoslovakia and Romania – 1957

After the fall of communism, most of Eastern Europe continued with liberal abortion laws except for Poland, where abortion is allowed only in cases of risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Abortion in cases of an abnormality in an unborn child was previously legal but was ruled unconstitutional by the country's highest court in 2020.

Western Europe

Sweden was the first liberal democracy in Europe to legalise abortion, in 1938. Liberal abortion laws were introduced in Western Europe from the 1960s onwards, one of the first of which being the Abortion Act 1967 in Great Britain alongside similar liberalisations in Norway in 1964, Finland in 1970, and Denmark in 1973.

Abortion on request during the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy was permitted in East Germany in 1972. The same policy was enacted in West Germany in 1974 but was ruled unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court as it infringed on the right to life of the unborn child. A revised law, with restrictions on abortion, was introduced in 1976.

The law on abortion in France was liberalised in 1975 and the changes in France and Germany were followed by similar changes in the law elsewhere in Europe:

• Austria – 1975
• Italy and Luxembourg – 1978
• Netherlands and Portugal – 1984
• Spain – 1985
• Greece – 1986
• Belgium – 1990
• Switzerland – 2002

King Baudouin of Belgium, a devout Catholic, stepped aside from his role as monarch due to his conscientious objection to abortion legislation in 1990; the law was approved by the Government of Belgium (acting as head of state) and Baudouin resumed his reign one day later.

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, approved by referendum in 1983, and the subsequent Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 limited abortion to cases where the pregnant woman's life was endangered. The law on abortion changed significantly to a very liberal policy in Ireland when, in 2018, the Eighth Amendment was repealed by a subsequent referendum. The resulting law allowed for abortion on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, and on more limited grounds at later stages. Abortion in Northern Ireland was liberalised in 2019.

In 2015, the Parliament of Norway (Storting) legislated that an unborn child is presumed to be viable at 21 weeks and 6 days unless there are specific reasons otherwise. The law was clarified as survival after abortion was recorded in some cases at 22 or 23 weeks of gestation.

Current status

The Center for Reproductive Rights, an American advocacy organisation, estimates that 95% of European women of reproductive age live in countries which allow for abortions as an elective procedure or for broad social and economic reasons.

Most countries in the European Union allow elective abortions during the first trimester, while Sweden and the Netherlands have more extended time limits. After the first trimester, abortion is generally allowed only under certain circumstances, such as risk to the woman's life or health, fetal defects, or in other specific situations that may be related to the circumstances of the conception or the woman's age. For instance, in Austria, second-trimester abortions are allowed only if there is a serious risk to the woman's life, physical health, or mental health (that cannot be averted by other means); serious fetal impairment (either physical or mental); or where a girl becomes pregnant when she is under 14 years of age. Some countries, such as Denmark, allow abortion after the first trimester for a variety of reasons, including socio-economic reasons if the decision to proceed is authortised by a committee with legal and medical expertise. Similarly, in Finland, technically abortions up to 12 weeks require authorization from two doctors (unless there are special circumstances) although in practice, the authorization is only a rubber stamp and it is granted if the mother simply does not wish to have a baby.

Access to abortion in much of Europe is closely related to prevailing social views which influence how law is interpreted. Laws which allow a second trimester abortion due to mental health concerns are, in many countries, interpreted very liberally while elsewhere (for example in Italy) widespread conscientious objection to abortion by doctors limits the number of abortions which can be provided at any stage of pregnancy.

A waiting time between medical advice regarding a potential abortion and the procedure is required in some countries e.g. a three-day time for consideration (Bedenkzeit) in Germany, with mandatory counselling in early pregnancy or voluntary counselling in later pregnancy when the conditions for an abortion are more restricted.

Most European countries have laws that stipulate that girls need their parents' consent or that the parents must be informed of the abortion. Under some policies, this rule can be circumvented if a committee agrees that the girl may be placed at risk if her parents find out about the pregnancy, or that otherwise, it is in her best interests to not notify her parents. Some countries differentiate between younger pregnant girls and older girls (for example aged 16 or older in Serbia) with the latter not subjected to parental restrictions. In France, there is no minimum age at which a pregnant woman or girl may request a voluntary abortion – interruption volontaire de grossesse. A pregnant girl may either seek the consent of her parents (or her legal representative), or can proceed without informing them although she needs to be accompanied by an adult person of her choice.

In countries where abortion is restricted, women regularly travel to neighbouring countries with more liberal laws. Almost 8,000 Irish women travelled to England and Wales for abortion each year in the early 2000s; however, this number decreased, year on year, to around 4,000 in 2018, and to less than 1,000 per year following changes in the law in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Abortion laws by country

In most European countries, there is a term limit before which abortion is more easily available in law than afterwards. This can include allowing for an abortion on request, without a medical indication by the pregnant woman. The grounds on which abortion is, or is not, permitted vary considerably according to national laws and policies.

See also