“Culture of Death”: Europe Doubles Down on Abortion and Assisted Suicide

In 1995, Pope John Paul II coined the phrase “culture of death” to denote a society “excessively concerned with efficiency”, to the ultimate detriment of “the weak”, whom he defined as those requiring greater love, care and acceptance and who are most likely to be viewed as useless or as an “intolerable burden”.

“A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated”, the Polish pope wrote in the encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae, adding that in this way “a kind of ‘conspiracy against life’ is unleashed”.

John Paul II highlighted practices like abortion, euthanasia and population control measures as being among those that undermine the inviolable dignity of the vulnerable, as opposed to the affirmative approach taken by a “culture of life”, which is defined by its regard for the sanctity of human life.

In light of that analysis, it is fair to say that the culture of death continues to expand across Europe. The past week has seen a number of developments in multiple European countries that have either deepened societal commitment to abuses of the human person or sought to introduce such attitudes into society in a new way.

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The UK's "Assisted Dying" Bill Returns from the Dead

Beginning with the latter first, this week saw the return to the United Kingdom of the formerly defeated Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, more commonly known as the so-called “Assisted Dying” bill.

The bill, introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in 2024, was passed by members of Parliament in June last year. The legislation would enable adults with less than six months to live to seek assistance from a medical practitioner to end their lives.

The bill failed to progress past the House of Lords, running out of time after more than 1,000 amendments were tabled, with extensive concerns arising throughout the committee stage regarding the quality of its safeguarding provisions.

However, Lauren Edwards MP this week agreed to use a private member’s bill to bring the issue back before the country’s parliamentarians for consideration, while the Parliament Act could be used to ensure that, the second time around, the controversial legislation evades the scrutiny of the House of Lords.

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This is despite previous polling showing that a majority of the public does not support bypassing the House of Lords in the case of the assisted suicide bill, as well as broad opposition to the legislation in its current form among medical professionals, including general practitioners and palliative care workers.

Critics of the bill have argued that if it were to be introduced, it could have the unintended side effect of putting pressure on those who may be eligible for it, resulting in a subtle and difficult-to-detect form of coercion.

Meanwhile, abortion remains politically relevant in Europe, despite ongoing opposition to the practice or its expansion among significant domestic cohorts.

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Ireland Votes to Scrap Three-Day Abortion Wait

In Ireland, the Dáil (parliament) voted in favor of an opposition bill to remove the mandatory three-day wait period before a woman could access abortion, with the legislation passing by 86 votes to 70 and no abstentions.

Despite being introduced by the largest opposition party, Sinn Féin, the bill received support from Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin and Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) Simon Harris, whose supportive positions on it were at odds with those of the majority of the parliamentarians within their own parties.

The majority of Martin’s Fianna Fáil members voted against the bill, as did the majority of Harris’s Fine Gael members.

Opponents of the removal of the three-day wait said that it offered women in difficult circumstances time to pause for reflection before making a serious choice and cited data indicating that many women opted against going through with an abortion as a result of the waiting period.

They also argued that the removal was a betrayal of promises made to voters ahead of the 2018 referendum that paved the way for abortion in Ireland, when the three-day wait period was offered as a safeguard acknowledging the moral weight of the decision.

According to the latest figures available, approximately 11,000 abortions take place per year in Ireland, resulting in almost 60,000 abortions since the law changed at the beginning of 2019.

Finally, legislators in Luxembourg voted on 16 June to enshrine so-called “abortion rights” in the country’s constitution, becoming just the second country in the world to take the radical step following France’s example in 2024.

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The vast majority of the country’s parliamentarians voted in favor of the change, with just a handful opposing it.

Despite the ongoing implementation of the regressive measures, they remain a live political issue on both sides of the Atlantic, progressive politicians in Europe doubling down on the practices in particular after the US Supreme Court overturned the influential Roe v. Wade. That landmark decision removed the federal constitutional basis for abortion access and returned the matter to the state level.