Informera, konsumera och röra sig fritt : en studie om kvinnors valfrihet och abortens dimensioner i den Europeiska unionen

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how the European union relates to the different dimensions of abortion. What kind of problem is abortion and whose right is it? Does difference framings of the problem enable different solutions? By analyzing debates from the European parliament through Carol Lee Bacchis method “What’s the problem approach” I have come to see that different representations of a problem changes the problem it self. This emphasis that a problem is a problem in one context, but not in an other. Depending on the work of, among others, Barbara Hobson and Ailbhe Smyth I have focused upon the European union as a economical project, leaving social issues to national competence. This makes the EU a patriarchal project that fails to guarantee women’s rights. By not being able to assure women the right of abortion, the women of Europe is treated as second class citizens. Through the eyes of the European union my material has shown that abortion is not only a conflict between the woman’s right to choose and the child’s right to live, but also a conflict of democracy. National sovereignty is challenged by a European citizenship of women. The right to information and the right to freedom of movement within the EU puts the European question of abortion in a new focus. By framing the problem of abortion as a problem of mobility it enables a way of placing women’s right in the free market system. A Europe that allows women to choose where to perform an abortion, and also provide them with information on contraceptives and the morning-after pill, is a Europe that falls within the idea of the EU as a economical project