The Hungarian Trojan Horse

Jon O'Brien

24 March 2011

Read the article in Hungarian below or on the Népszabadság website.

A Trojan horse has arrived outside the gates of Hungarian society. It appears in the form of an apparently benign attempt to reform and modernize the constitution. But the possible implications of this modernization are horrendous for all Hungarians.

To explore what these implications are, I want you to imagine a country where access to information is denied. Imagine a country where books are censored. Where pages are ripped out of imported magazines. Where conversations between doctors and women are censored. Where pharmacies are raided and medicines confiscated. This may sound like a totalitarian nightmare, like Ceausescu’s Romania, but it’s not. All this happened in the Republic of Ireland, a fellow member of the European Union. In Ireland, abortion is illegal. Some people would like to see abortion made illegal in Hungary too. And to achieve this they will sacrifice the very cornerstone of a free and democratic society.

The attack on abortion rights in Hungary is not presented as such. In fact, it comes in the guise of a move to modernize the constitution that includes a provision that would protect human life from the moment of conception. The inclusion of such a clause could effectively do away with access to abortion, despite the fact that the majority of Hungarians support abortion rights.

One might ask how this can happen even though more than one leading politician claimed that they do not intend to restrict the current rules on abortion. One could file a case to the Constitutional Court arguing the unconstitutionality of the existing legislation on abortion, based on the new text of the Constitution. As a consequence the interpretation of the new text by the Court could easily proclaim the unconstitutionality of the current rules and then annul them. In those circumstances, the parliament would have to restrict access to abortion.

This change is possible despite the fact that the majority of Hungarians support abortion rights. It is not that any woman or couple would aspire to have an abortion, but sometimes in the tough circumstances that life throws up, an abortion may be necessary. When that happens it is critical, and sometimes lifesaving, that abortion is a safe and legal option. Despite this universal fact, there is a move to ban all access to abortion in Hungary. What would that mean? We could ask women in Poland who must travel abroad to access abortion services what it means. Let me tell you that for women who need to access abortion services and don’t have the financial means to circumvent legal restrictions it would have a huge and potentially devastating impact on their lives. I know, because I grew up in a country where abortion was already illegal, and then they tried to stop women traveling overseas to access services. read more >>