The three Labour party MEPs have voted against amendments to the EU Budget which would have explicitly prevented projects funded by the EU going towards coercive abortion and sex-selective abortion. Nessa Childers, Prionsias De Rossa, Alan Kelly, and Socialist MEP Joe Higgins, voted down the amendments in the EU Parliament last week.

The amendments failed to secure enough votes for approval: there were 316 votes against Amendment 733, which would have explicitly prevented funding of coercive abortion, with 305 MEPs voting for the amendment.

In the case of Amendment 732, which would have prevented EU funding being used for projects which fund sex selective abortions, there were 300 votes against and 304 votes in favour. However, at this stage a majority of 365 votes would have been needed to pass the amendments.

The amendments were opposed by the National Council of Women in Ireland (NCWI) – a taxpayer funded outfit which does not consult the members of its affiliates before taking such positions. In a letter to its members, the NCWI made it clear that it supported the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) that opposed the amendments on the grounds that they were part of what they described as a ‘wider agenda’.

The EU budget is now open to funding programmes such as those supported by groups like International Planned Parenthood Federation who assist the Communist government of China in their coercive population control programme, involving forced abortions.

The EWL also opposed the amendment outlawing gender-based abortion on the basis that “it seeks to lay a basis for considering that a foetus has rights from the ‘moment of conception’ and therefore undermine national provisions which regulate access to termination of pregnancy as well to emergency contraception.”

The EWL also argues that the phrase “at any point after conception” used in the amendment “is a phrase used by some extremist, religiously-inspired groups and individuals who oppose access to legal abortion.”