Onslaughts on the Right to Choose. A Transcontinental Panorama

Abstract

Almost everywhere in the world we are witnessing the questionong of the abortion right. In Southern, Western and Esatern Europe, in Northern or Southern America, in those parts of the world where the fight against the criminalization of abortion had been successful and where the demand that it becomes a right of all women, the fundamentalist and conservative forces are now on the offensive. At the same time, those who defend the right of women to freely choose the corse of their existence must often struggle to be heard as exemplified by the recent decision of the European Parliament to recognize abortion as a women's right and by the decision of the Spanish government to abolish the progressive law adopted some years ago. In this paper, basing myself on a number of concrete exaples, I will examine what are the current positions od the pro-life movements - bette called anti-choice movements - and the implications of their attacks against women's right to choose in many so-callde democratic countries.