Reproduktiva rättigheter, normativ legitimitet och unionsrättens kompetensgränser : En analys utifrån det europeiska medborgarinitiativet My Voice, My Choice: For Safe and Accessible Abortion

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how reproductive rights, and particularly access to abortion, can gain normative and institutional legitimacy within the European Union’s legal and institutional framework despite the Union’s limited competence in matters of public health. Using the European Citizens’ Initiative My Voice, My Choice: For Safe and Accessible Abortion as its primary case, this study combines a legal doctrinal analysis of EU law with a theoretical analysis drawing on Harold Hongju Koh’s theory of transnational legal process and feminist critiques of international law developed by Charlesworth and Chinkin. The doctrinal analysis confirms that full harmonization of abortion rules and health‑care organization is excluded under Article 168(7) TFEU, while there remains an implicit but real possibility for EU action through supporting measures such as cross‑border healthcare, the freedoms of the internal market, and soft law. The Commission’s response to the initiative, in which abortion is recognized as a public‑health concern while no new legislation is proposed, illustrates this limited but existing space for action. The results show that the initiative can strengthen normative and institutional legitimacy without harmonization. The thesis argues that My Voice, My Choice primarily functions as an instrument of normative influence rather than legislative change. The initiative can be seen as a driving force for the gradual internalization of reproductive rights within the EU’s identity and political discourse, while the line between functional harmonization remains a significant limitation.