(LifeSiteNews) — On September 22, nearly 40,000 people packed the streets of Košice for the fourth March for Life in Slovakia. The slogan of the march was “Love is pro-life,” and the massive turnout was an indication of the growing strength of Slovakia’s pro-life movement. One of the speakers at the march was the Slovakian Commissioner for Children, Jozef Miklosko, who told the crowd that it was his job to advocate for all children – both born and unborn.
Although abortion is legal in Slovakia up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, there have been encouraging developments. Between 1987 and 2021, the abortion rate dropped each year. While it rose slightly in 2022 and 2023, Slovakia does not permit the abortion pill, despite intense lobbying efforts from abortion activists. In fact, earlier this year, a bill that would have legalized chemical, at-home abortions was withdrawn.
Additionally, there are indications that many Slovakian legislators hold pro-life views. “Great pro-life news from Europe, Slovakia this time!” pro-life advocate and researcher Dr. Calum Miller noted recently. “After the European Parliament passed a resolution encouraging the inclusion of the [so-called] right to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, Slovakia’s parliament voted to reject this interference in national affairs!”
“This is significant because Slovakia is not one of the EU’s traditionally pro-life countries,” Miller observed. “Abortion has been legal there since 1957 when it was still part of Czechoslovakia. This shows that pro-lifers are making progress even in [pro-abortion] countries in Europe!”
This is encouraging news because the primary backlash to the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 has been a scramble by other Western countries to shore up their abortion regimes in any way that they can to ensure that something similar could not occur in their own nations. Norway and Denmark have expanded the legality of abortion. France made abortion a “constitutional right” with almost no pushback from any party; a wild party in front of the Eiffel Tower followed the vote.
In April, the European Union demanded that abortion be considered a fundamental “human right,” signaling to pro-life countries that their laws protecting the unborn are unacceptable. In Poland, for example, abortion is still largely illegal, although the leftist coalition government is attempting to do an end run around the law to make feticide accessible anyways.
In Malta, despite a two-year campaign to legalize abortion, the pro-life movement’s pushback succeeded – one pro-life rally constituted 4 percent of the population – and abortion remains illegal. The EU called on Poland and Malta to repeal their bans immediately; both have refused to do so, with the most recent attempt to legalize abortion in Poland failing in July.
Yet across Europe, the abortion extremism of the politicians has been matched by an explosion of pro-life action. The number of pro-life marches, for example, has been rising – nearly every country on the continent now has an annual march for life. As CNE reported last month:
Pro-life demonstrations started in France in 1988, followed by the Netherlands in 1992. In the first ten years after that, the growth was slow. The total number has grown to forty in 36 countries. In some countries, like Ukraine, there have been more than two or even three demonstrations. In Romania, there is a march in several cities. More recently, these efforts have continued an upward trend… The frequency of these marches increased in Western and Eastern Europe, especially after 2010. At least nine marches began in the 2010s, specifically in Eastern Europe, and in the 2020s, another five were added in that region. Four new marches also appeared in Central Europe. In the northern and southern regions, at least two marches emerged after 2020, and four new ones appeared in Western Europe after 2010.
I have attended many of these marches in person – in the Hague, in Vienna, and elsewhere. They are a reminder that as the darkness grows, the light shines brighter.
