EU gives anti-abortion group €400k to educate girls on reproductive health

This story was originally published in openDemocracy.

A US-based anti-abortion charity was given a €400,000 grant from the European Union to run a reproductive health and rights education project, in a decision that experts describe as “mind-boggling.”

The World Youth Alliance (WYA), which has a Brussels office, claims that abortion poses a risk to fertility and future pregnancies – claims rejected by the NHS. Its founder, Anna Halpine, has also compared abortion to “the Nazis and their campaign to dehumanise Jews”.

openDemocracy revealed earlier this month how WYA had been handed €1.2m over the past decade, with the €400,000 grant forming part of that total. However, it has only now emerged that this part of the funding was intended for reproductive health education for girls.

The group is officially a “non-religious” non-governmental organisation, yet its values and teachings often echo religious conservative talking points on gender rights.

Documents obtained by openDemocracy reveal the charity is running an EU-funded project worth nearly half a million euros to deliver education and information on reproductive health and rights to women and girls.

The EU gave WYA €400,000 in 2023 to run the Women’s Health Goes Digital project which aims to “design and deliver innovative training programmes in the field of women’s mental and reproductive health and rights”.

The grant is the largest single sum of money awarded to WYA by the EU via its Erasmus+ programme which supports education, training, youth and sport across Europe.

The Women’s Health Goes Digital project will develop an “innovative training programme and methodology for informing and educating girls and young women on reproductive health and rights.” It aims to “design policy recommendations and raise awareness on women’s mental and reproductive health and rights among 100,000 girls and young women, decision-makers, experts, the media and the general public.”

The project’s objectives include reaching “701 direct participants”, saying that “tangible outcomes will be produced”. These may include a “handbook with best practices, approaches and methodologies, a training programme containing step-by-step activities, digital platform, and two policy recommendations”.

Neil Datta, executive director of the European Parliamentary Forum of Sexual and Reproductive Rights, described the grant award as “mind-boggling”.

“That the European Commission is providing €400,000 to WYA for a reproductive health programme raises serious questions about the Commission’s professional capacity to understand what reproductive health is, which in turn calls into question all EU funding reported as reproductive health or sexual and reproductive health and rights.”.

Datta added: “The WYA’s anti-sexual and reproductive health and rights position is explicit, open and a source of pride. If the Commission is serious in its political support for sexual and reproductive health and rights, it urgently needs to step up its capacity in this area so that it doesn’t make similar blunders in the future.”

The WYA has a long history of sharing anti-abortion disinformation. For instance, it falsely claims that “induced abortion poses risks to fertility and reproductive health,” and leads to medical issues in subsequent pregnancies. This is despite the NHS confirming that having an abortion “will not affect your chances of becoming pregnant and having normal pregnancies in the future.”

The group also falsely claims that access to safe abortion does not reduce the maternal mortality rate. It is estimated that 22,000 women globally die as a result of unsafe abortion annually, and the World Health Organisation is clear that providing safe abortion reduces deaths of pregnant women. Yet the charity repeated the claims in 2022.

The charity believes that “abortion is not part of reproductive health, and that in no case should abortion be promoted as part of family planning”. WYA has also insisted that “states must not bow to pressure to include abortion in reproductive health.”

Dr. Anu Kumar, president and CEO of sexual and reproductive rights at Ipas Impact Network told openDemocracy: “It is unconscionable that the EU continues to fund the World Youth Alliance, an anti-abortion organisation that consistently denies that abortion is reproductive healthcare.

“Denying youth access to vital information on such care – from contraceptives to abortion – is a violation of human rights. Everyone has the right to make informed decisions about their body. Funding such an anti-abortion organisation begs the question, is the EU blinded by the anti-rights movement, and intent on denying people access to basic human rights?”

In response to openDemocracy’s previous revelations about EU funding for WYA, the European Commission said it would “look into the matter”, with plans to carry out “an analysis to assess whether there has been a breach of the grant agreement for non-compliance with EU values or serious professional misconduct”.

The European Commission added that, while “the Erasmus+ programme does not specifically mention disinformation, intentional proliferation of disinformation could constitute serious misconduct, since it could harm public health and undermine transparency or trust of participants in Erasmus+.” The Commission confirmed it would include disinformation “in our assessment as to whether the organisation is in breach of its grant agreement.”

World Youth Alliance did not respond to a request for comment.