Amidst growing right-wing movements in Europe that are attempting to remove women's reproductive rights, actions are taking place in Brussels to mark the International Safe and Legal Abortion Day.
 
MEP Malin Björk comments: “It is obvious that the anti-abortion sentiment does not grow in a political vacuum but coincides with the conservative and nationalist winds that are sweeping across Europe.”
 
“That is why it is so important to show that the resistance to these cruel and archaic tendencies is strong, and that it really pays to protest.”
 
Malin is speaking at 1.30pm today at a EuroNGOs conference on promoting sexual and reproductive health rights in a time of growing populism.
 
The conference session will also launch a publication with testimonies from Polish women engaged in the Czarny protest (black protest) in Poland where women stood up against their government's proposal for an almost total ban on abortion with solidarity from around the world last year.
 
The publication has been produced with the support of MEPs from the European Parliament's All of Us network.
 
GUE/NGL MEPs will also participate in a demonstration at 5.30pm starting at Parc Cinquantenaire in Brussels today to demand that sexual and reproductive rights and abortion are included as fundamental rights for equality in Europe.
 
This demonstration will take place within the framework of the European Meeting of the World March of Women.