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2005-11-21
European Union >> European Parliament
The Parliament rejects primary health care and everything it includes
On reproductive health, the Parliament gives a « humanistic » vote (Louis MICHEL, Development Commissioner)
On November 17th 2005, the European Parliament in Strasbourg took a stand against primary health and all that it encompasses and, instead, favors ‘sexual and reproductive health’, which includes abortion.
The amendments that were introduced by Mr Konrad Szymanski, on behalf of his political group UEN, which aimed to replace the term ‘sexual and reproductive’ in the report on “a development strategy for Africa” by Maria martens (EPP, Netherlands) and in the report on “the European consensus” by Anders Wijkman (EPP, Sweden), stirred an open debate on the inclusion of abortion in reproductive health.
During the debates that preceded the votes to adopt the two reports, Mr Marcin Libicki (UEN, Poland) called on the Parliamentary Assembly to support Mr Szymanski’s amendments which introduced a medical term, i. e. primary health care, defined by the World Health Organisation without the inclusion of abortion (Alma Ata, 1978). Mr Libicki reminded the Assembly how the issue of abortion divides the parliamentarians and remains a national competence. For this reason, Mr Libicki further stressed that the promotion of ‘reproductive health’ has always been used with the ideological aim to promote abortion services and does not have its place in the elaboration of a development policy. Development Commissioner, Louis Michel, was present for the debates and responded to this affirmation that ‘reproductive health’ has no ideological connotation, but it is rather 'humanistic'.
At the conclusions of the debate, Mr Bernd Posselt (EPP, Germany) insisted that the Commissioner should take a clear stand to clarify whether he could exclude abortion from so-called reproductive health. Louis Michel simply dismissed the question and refused to give a clear answer. 21 MEPs voted in favour to replace reproductive health with primary health care: IND/DEM: Giertych, Krupa, Pęk, Rogalski, Sinnott, Tomczak, Wojciechowski Bernard
NI: Czarnecki Ryszard, Masiel, Rutowicz
EPP-ED: Jeggle, Kaczmarek, Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou, Siekierski, Sonik, Wojciechowski Janusz, Záborská, Zaleski
UEN: Bielan, Kamiński, Libicki 52 voted against: ALDE: Krahmer, Lynne, Matsakis, Schuth
GUE/NGL: Guerreiro, Kohlíček, Meijer, Pafilis, Strož, Uca
EPP-ED: Caspary, Chichester, Deva, Gaľa, Gauzès, Gomolka, Grossetête, Gutiérrez-Cortines, Martens, Mavrommatis, Papastamkos, Pleštinská, Poettering, Posselt, Samaras, Sommer, Sturdy, Varvitsiotis, Vatanen, Wieland, Zatloukal
PSE: Ayala Sender, Bullmann, De Keyser, De Rossa, Ettl, Gebhardt, Geringer de Oedenberg, Herczog, Hutchinson, Kuc, Martin David, Martínez Martínez, Medina Ortega, Roure, Sakalas, Scheele, Tarabella, Van Lancker
Greens/ALE: Onesta, Schlyter
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