The EP’s report is based on the European Commission’s Communication entitled "
Solidarity in health: reducing health inequalities in the EU" from 2009. In the Estrela Report, Members of the European Parliament (MEP) call on the Council of the European Union (composed of EU Member States) to promote efforts to tackle health inequalities as a policy priority in all Member States. MEPs insist that tackling socio-economic inequalities would lead to a reduction of some of the inequalities relating to healthcare and insisted on ensuring that the most vulnerable groups are entitled to and are provided with equitable access to healthcare featured in the report.
In this respect, the report put forward strong language on SRHR. It “Considers that the EU and the Member States should guarantee women easy access to methods of contraception and the right to safe abortion” and “considers that the EU and the Member States must support civil-society and women’s organisations that promote women’s human rights, including their sexual and reproductive rights, the right to a healthy lifestyle and the right to work, with a view to ensuring that women have a voice on European and national health policy issues”.
Despite efforts from a number of anti-choice organisations that sent voting recommendations to MEPs asking to reject both paragraphs, the aforementioned wording was adopted in its entirety with 424:199:38 votes, respectively 370:278:18 votes with a good number of centre-right MEPs supporting these paragraphs.
