“This government likes to see itself as representing ‘traditional values’ and positions itself against what it deems ‘unethical and immoral developments in the West’,” women’s rights expert and political philosopher Noa Nogradi told BIRN.

Hungary’s abortion law, with its mandatory counselling and waiting periods, has previously been slammed by the likes of the United Nations and the World Health Organization for stigmatising abortion and undermining fundamental human rights.

Hungary’s Minister for Family Affairs Katalin Novak told HVG magazine that no changes to the country’s abortion laws were in the pipeline following the Geneva declaration. But with the state bankrolling a break in legally mandated procedures in select hospitals by attaching a ‘no-abortion’ condition to its financial support, Nogradi believes that, “we could see even more sneaking restrictions to reproductive rights in the future.”

Out of the blue

Hungary’s sponsorship of the Geneva declaration put the country at the helm of a motley coalition of pro-life hardliners that reject “any international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion,” the document reads.

Most of its 30-odd signatories make up the 20 worst countries around the world for women to live in, according to the Women, Peace and Security Index compiled by Georgetown University. Hungary, ranked 49th, is the third worst among all EU countries and ranks even below the likes of Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

“None of the people on the list could care less about women,” Gillian Kane from Ipas, an international safe access to abortion advocacy group, summed up for The Guardian newspaper.

The declaration is legally void and does not change any laws already in place. But Hungary’s stamp on the family-touting document was still a rude awakening to many, even in the face of the government’s years-long pursuit of a “policy to spur procreation within predominantly middle-class families with the motif of jumpstarting population growth,” Reka Safrany, who chairs the Hungarian’s Women’s Lobby, told BIRN.

Though the government’s mounting hostility toward reproduction rights was palpable, “we didn’t see [the Geneva Consensus Declaration] coming,” Safrany added.

Roadblocks ahead

Since its return to power in 2010, Orban’s government has introduced several obstacles to obtaining an abortion. It wasted no time in slotting language about protecting the foetus “since its conception” in the constitution, a first for Europe at the time.

Though abortion has remained legal, women can only request the procedure within a narrow set of circumstances, as in the case of grave damage to the foetus, when the mother’s health is at risk or when the pregnancy is the result of a crime. Pregnancies can also be mandated by the woman’s precarious socio-economic situation, which provides a “walkable trail for abortions within the public health system” in spite of the law’s limiting scope, Safrany explained.

The message is clear: if you choose abortion, the state wants you to have it the hard way.

– Noa Nogradi, women’s rights expert and political philosopher

Women are also subject to mandatory waiting periods and two counselling sessions that are deliberately intended to change minds and dissuade them from going ahead with an abortion. Yet according to research by the PATENT association, a reproductive rights watchdog, these counselling sessions only seem to add to the women’s mental strain. “Of the more than a hundred women we asked, not a single one came away from it dissuaded. But they all felt humiliated,” expert Nogradi, who took part in the study, said.

“And it’s getting harder to book an appointment, even though abortions are extremely time sensitive and you simply can’t have the procedure without it,” Nogradi added.

Permits for medical abortions that rely on pills have been revoked, leaving many women with surgery as their only option other than going abroad. Nogradi thinks this policy is tinged with ideology. “The message is clear: if you choose abortion, the state wants you to have it the hard way.”

Name and shame

The past two decades has seen a steady decline in the number of abortions carried out in Hungary. Last year, close to 26,000 pregnancies were surgically terminated in the country, half the tally from 15 years ago, according to the Central Statistical Office. Yet the government’s anti-abortion tirade continues.

Minister of Human Resources Miklos Kasler famously blamed abortion for Hungary’s population decline, brushing off data that showed the country’s death rate twice outstrips the number of abortions.

And Family Minister Novak has spoken out against abortion in an oft-cited interview with the alt-right website Breitbart. She branded the pro-choice movement as “pro-killing” and applauded Hungary’s “family-oriented mentality”.

A state-sponsored schoolbook published at the outset of the past academic year reportedly contained several anti-abortion references.

This worldview is reflected in the government’s family planning program that offers free in vitro fertilisation to couples in a bid to boost fertility rates. But the policy leaves many people behind, activist Safrany suggests, as it’s focused on middle-class families. “Family planning is also about affordable contraception and adequate education. Why don’t these programs have the same backing when many women lack the means to afford them?”

The government’s family-centric orientation is extreme, Judit Zeller from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union told BIRN, and could lead “to completely shutting out non-married couples or singles from fertilisation treatments.”

Conscientious objections to abortions from doctors, often incentivised by government funding, are also on the rise. “Yet even in the current legal framework, abortion is a right that should be upheld. After all, abortions are part of the specialists’ job, that’s what they learn at university,” Safrany said.

Following suit

Under the cloud of the Geneva declaration, activists now fear changes similar to the government’s constitutional revamp of nearly a decade ago could be in the making.

The ambiguity of the Hungarian law granting women reproductive rights and at the same time guaranteeing the life of the foetus has been subject to a drawn-out and heated debate. “Abortions could potentially be outlawed in reference to the constitution,” Nogradi explained.

Restricting abortions is an obvious fit for the government’s policy, but public support for abortions is so high across political orientations.

– Judit Zeller of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union

In Poland, the only European country apart from Belarus to sign the Geneva declaration, a near-total ban on abortions was imposed by a verdict from the Constitutional Tribunal in October just as the news on the Geneva document broke. In the face of massive street protests which are still ongoing, the nationalist-populist government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a vocal Orban-ally, has delayed the court ruling’s implementation.

Orban, who rules by decree as Hungary grapples with a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, could soon follow suit. In early November, the prime minister used the clout of his near-unchecked power to bypass ordinary legislative process and rush through a string of legal and constitutional changes.

Apart from cementing its ruling position by amending electoral laws, Fidesz rewrote the constitution to classify a mother as “female” and a father as “male”, while putting a sticker of Christian values on the upbringing of children. Another draft bill makes it all but impossible for unmarried couples to adopt children, unless special permission is granted by Family Minister Novak herself.

Silent majority

Hungary’s government has so far publicly denied any intention to tamper with the abortion laws, but that is not enough to assuage critics.

“In this state of emergency, it’s nearly impossible to hold a wider public debate on these weighty issues, including abortion, that concern the lives of many women and men alike. It would be very uncalled for if decisions were made about abortions without consulting the public,” Safrany said. “Anything’s possible, but we want to believe what the government has been telling us so far.”

A 2017 poll laid bare a sweeping silent majority of Hungarians who were opposed to curbing abortion beyond its current state. “A populist government will not want to do something this unpopular. Instead of their top-down brainwashing and demoralisation, they might actually listen to the people. But this majority has to be louder and to build public resistance against this brainwashing,” Nogradi ventured.

Racism, somewhat ironically, could also play a part in securing abortion. “Women from lower income Roma families also request the procedure. And the government doesn’t want their babies; they want white middle-class babies,” Nogradi added.

This article is published as part of a project to promote independent digital media in Central and Eastern Europe funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and coordinated by Notes from Poland.