European Commission Policies Deny Abortions to Girls and Women Impregnated by War Rape: A Call for Change
The lives of girls and women are routinely endangered by mass rape every day in nearly every war zone. Impregnated rape survivors are again endangered by being routinely denied abortions in EU-funded medical facilities.
This is because the European Commission’s policy is that that national abortion laws, not the Geneva Conventions, provide the appropriate standard of medical care for women, civilians and servicewomen alike, impregnated by war rape. They are the only category of persons “wounded and sick” in armed conflict being deliberately denied a critical medical treatment in humanitarian medical settings. This policy legitimizes forced childbearing as an appropriate medical outcome for war rape survivors, and is hugely influential given that the European Union (EU), through the European Commission, is the world’s second largest donor of humanitarian aid.