Abortfrågan - En EU-paradox?

Sammanfattning: The abortion issue in the European Union today stands for a paradox situation. Within the union abortion is handled through the subsidiary principle, which states that every country has the right to decide upon the issue itself. Although all member countries of the union have ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, three countries still does not allow women to do an abortion. According to feminist rights theory, the background perspective of this essay, human rights begin at birth and therefore countries that have ratified those rights should allow abortion. In this normative study the question of abortion is analyzed through an argumentation. To clarify the conflict of values that this argumentation circles around I have divided the conflict into four parts; rights, democracy, the national level and the European level. My thesis is that abortion should be justified in the EU on the basis of human rights and feminist rights theory. My result is that abortion can be justified on those grounds because of the fact that human rights begin at birth and also because the EU, as a democracy has to live up to certain women’s rights standards, such as allowing abortion.