Feminists and organizers across Europe must start building the kinds of grassroots networks that have helped pregnant Americans get abortion care even in states with bans.

As abortion bans rise across the United States, European countries are pushing to enshrine reproductive rights in their national constitutions. 

In March 2026, Luxembourg amended its constitution to protect reproductive rights, in direct response to the U.S. overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.  In June 2026, Finland’s leading political parties voted that abortion rights must be secured in its constitution. In April, Spain advanced a draft constitutional reform to “guarantee the exercise of women’s right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.” 

This progress follows France’s historic 2024 declaration of “freedom guaranteed to the woman of having recourse to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy.” Together, these changes might suggest that the continent is becoming an unassailable sanctuary for reproductive rights—particularly for people in the United States, whose abortion rights depend on their state of residence. Many Europeans believe that, too.

The truth on the ground, as I know from my work coordinating support for abortion providers and patients at the Netherlands-based nonprofit Supporting Abortions for Everyone (SAFE), is more complicated. In practice, Europe remains a minefield for people who want or need to end their pregnancy—and Europeans could learn a lot from the U.S. about helping them get care.

Reality check: Europe’s abortion-access crisis

While cementing constitutional protection in four major European countries would represent major, symbolic victories for reproductive rights and raise the political bar against potential far-right rollbacks, words on paper are not the same as health-care delivery in practice. 

A constitutional amendment does not create medical infrastructure, nor does it eliminate structural inequalities in health-care access; it has no effect on existing statutory restrictions, such as gestational limits or mandatory waiting periods.

More fundamentally, most European countries impose strict gestational limits, with many restricting abortion on request beyond the first trimester. The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have the highest gestational limits, allowing abortion up to 24 weeks. Poland, Malta, Monaco, and Liechtenstein prohibit abortion in all but the most narrow, specific circumstances, like to save the pregnant person’s life. But even these exceptions are rarely granted. In Andorra and Vatican City, abortion is completely illegal.

Even in places with longer term limits, like the UK and the Netherlands, the law never tells the full story. 

Just as in the post-Roe U.S., health-care professionals throughout most of Europe can refuse to provide abortion care on moral or religious grounds. These carveouts, known as “conscientious objection” exemptions, create de facto bans, even when abortion is supposedly legal. 

In Croatia, abortion is legally available on request up to........

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