Abortion also under fire in the Netherlands
Due to the imminent destruction of the right to abortion in the US, their own states have free rein to implement their abortion legislation. Conservative states will do everything they can to dismantle abortion law, resulting in the closure of 48 percent of American abortion clinics. These developments are by no means a far-fetched show: the anti-abortion lobby in the Netherlands would also prefer to follow the same course. The need to stand up for the protection of our underlying right to self-determination here too is many times greater than people think.
The discussion about abortion law is even hardening in the Netherlands. Visitors to abortion clinics are met, boxed in and threatened by anti-abortion protesters. The instigators of this hate campaign are well-organized, influential and wealthy. So-called ‘pro-life’ organizations such as the Transatlantic Christian Council (TCC) are the mouthpiece of the American anti-abortion movement, propagating their right-wing conservative agenda behind sweet marketing talk about ‘family values’ and ‘family life’.
In European countries such as Poland and organizations such as the TCC steed are gaining more ground. And so also in the Netherlands: in 2010 only 1,000 people took part in the anti-abortion demonstration ‘March for Life’, in 2020 there were no fewer than 10,000. Moreover, part of our parliament, the SGP, FvD and ChristenUnie, sympathizes with their ruthless rejection of the human right to abortion. In other words: the battle that the Dolle Mina started a century ago is still relevant. The militancy of the ‘pro-choice’ movement therefore remains enormous. For example, there are initiative proposals before the Senate to make abortion more accessible by abolishing the cooling-off period and making the abortion pill available from the general practitioner. And 1,000 people gathered on Dam Square to protest for abortion rights.
It allows the highest removal of abortion from the Criminal Code. That was already the main requirement of the Dolle Mina’s in the 1970s. The current legal basis that abortion is essentially seen as a crime that can only be carried out with ifs and buts. That is why today, together with a coalition of partner organisations, we have a petition to change this forever. After decades, activists can once again hit the barricades with the slogan ‘Baas In Eigen Buik’. Will: our body, our choice.
Initiator Boss In Your Own Belly 2022
A version of this article also in the newspaper of May 14, 2022