The Launch of the "My Voice, My Choice" Movement: A movement for common values, the right to choose about our own body, love and solidarity in Europe

Today marks a historic moment as we announced the launch of the "My Voice, My Choice" movement, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at advancing women's rights and ensuring accessible, safe reproductive choices for all women across Europe.

The "My Voice, My Choice" Movement: An Overview

The "My Voice, My Choice" movement is a pan-European initiative that brought together European movements from 8 different European countries, among them the Institute 8th of March, The Finnish Women’s Association Unioni, from Poland Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (Polish Women's strike) and a collective Wschod, in France a Collective “Ma Voix, Mon Choix” led by Alice Coffin and Sarah Durieux, Spanish movement led by activists Kika Fumero and Cristina Fallaras, National Womens Council of Ireland and coalition of NGOs in Croatia. Our mission is to get one ally in each European country and spread the movement globally.

“Our goal is clear, we want to establish a European financial mechanism that helps Member States provide access to safe and legal abortion for all those who still needlessly suffer and die because of the lack of access to safe abortion care. We submitted a European Citizens’ Initiative to the European Commission to achieve these legal changes and we are waiting for its registration. Our next goal is to collect one million signatures in support of this proposal in the next few months.” Nika Kovač from the Institute 8th of March, explained the process.

Marta Lempart from Polish Women’s Strike continues: "I come from a country, where women die in hospitals because they are denied abortion. And from a country, where the last elections were won by women and the youth, voting for women’s hell to end. 6 months after that, we have 4 bills on abortion in the parliament. 2 to legalize abortion and 1 to decriminalize abortion, supported by over 90% of the ruling coalition voters. But the only one that will be allowed to proceed is the abortion ban, as there is a Christian fundamentalist party in our government coalition that will never allow women’s hell in Poland to end. Thus we need a European level. We need hope. We need work to put our hands to. We need to feel we don’t walk alone - and European solidarity, and this Initiative, is the not walking alone in practice."

A Unified Call for Change

As outlined at the press conference the movement is just beginning. With the registration of the initiative and the planning of the next steps, “My Voice, My Choice is our common future, celebrating freedom to decide about our own lives. We decided to make safe and accessible abortion in Europe a reality: if the European Commission declines our initiative because of political games before the EU elections, we are prepared to seek justice before the EU Court of Justice,” explained Alice Coffin.

Sarah Durieux, one of the leading women to coordinate the campaign that ensured the right to abortion inscribed in the French Constitution, said: “We are pushing the boundaries of what is possible. The power of people who come together to fight for the same cause can inspire actions and create movements all over Europe, all over the world.”