A network of ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right organisations is building momentum in its quest to influence abortion policy in Europe as the US supreme court considers striking down Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised the procedure in America.
Elements of the network originally came together under the name Agenda Europe, holding yearly summits across the continent between 2013 until at least 2018, by which time it had grown to comprise 300 participants, including politicians and Vatican diplomats.
The aim of the group was to “restore the natural order” by devising ways to gradually erode abortion rights, gay rights and policies on combating violence against women, as well as to reduce access to contraceptives.
Organisers behind Agenda Europe summits included Terrence McKeegan, a former legal adviser to the Holy See’s mission to the UN in New York, and Gudrun Kugler, a Catholic theologian, member of the Austrian parliament and human rights spokesperson for the Austrian People’s party.
“It is a rather loose network that brought together all the different groups – mostly from around Europe – that identify themselves as pro-life or pro-family, so anti-abortion or anti-LGBT rights,” said Neil Datta, secretary of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights who conducted an inquiry into the network and shared documents detailing the group’s aims, meeting programmes and participants.
“You can see they started out trying to find their relevance, and by the third meeting they were actually coming up with proactive ideas about how to roll back human rights in sexuality and reproduction.”
Today, people connected to Agenda Europe are linked to the Political Network of Values (PNfV), a global platform with strikingly similar values that sprung up as the former’s visibility appeared to diminish.
PNfV is hosting its fourth transatlantic summit – which includes Kugler and other Agenda Europe personalities among the speakers – in Budapest on Thursday and Friday.
When it comes to abortion rights, the network is allegedly seeking to replicate recent anti-choice efforts in the US, where rightwing activists have gradually manoeuvred people who share the same views into the judicial and political systems.
“They’ll be really pumped up by the potential reversal of the Roe v Wade,” Datta added.
“Firstly, because it provides them with a model of one of the most advanced countries taking a position that conforms to their own thinking. But the US court is not responding to changes in society; this is the result of a 20- to 30-year strategy by the US Christian right to influence the whole American judicial system by training and placing its own people in the system.”
The network is believed to have already made headway in Europe, including heavily influencing Poland’s near-total ban on abortion as well as the outcome of same-sex marriage referendums in countries including Croatia, Romania and Slovenia.
Although abortion is legal in Hungary, the procedure has become more difficult to access under Viktor Orbán’s rightwing populist government.
Meanwhile, LGBT rights have been gradually eroded in the country over recent years. Last year the Hungarian parliament passed a law banning gay people from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows for under-18s, and in 2020 effectively banned adoption for same-sex couples and ended legal recognition for gender changes.
In Italy, the network is believed to have gained a foothold in 2019 when the country hosted a conference of the controversial World Congress of Families (WCF), a US Christian-right supported global coalition, in Verona.
Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League, a key component of the Italian government, spoke at the event, as did his far-right counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, who leads Brothers of Italy, the party currently leading in opinion polls.
Since then, measures to restrict abortion – such as banning health clinics from providing the abortion pill or allowing anti-abortion activists to infiltrate hospitals to pressure women not to end their pregnancy – have been introduced in regions led by a coalition of the two parties and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, including Marche, Lombardy, Piedmont, Umbria and Veneto.
Moreover, even though abortion was legalised in Italy via a referendum in 1978, it has become increasingly difficult for women to access a safe procedure due to the high number of gynaecologists – seven out of 10 – who are “moral objectors”.
“We know that the broader network’s strategy in relation to abortion is to first prevent, then restrict and ban,” said Datta.
“What we’re seeing now in Hungary and in countries such as Italy are attempts to prevent abortion from ever taking place, through conscientious objection and ways of dissuading women.”
Silvana Agatone, who until she retired was one of the few gynaecologists in Rome who carried out abortions, said: “It’s getting worse in Italy. We’ve always had objectors but now the life of a doctor who does do abortions has been made more difficult as you have these anti-abortion people going into hospitals pressuring them, and women, not to abort.
“They are also trying to rewrite medicine by paying people to produce material on the dangers of abortion that are purported to be scientific.”
An influential politician with the League is Simone Pillon, who until his election as senator in March 2018 was an adviser on the board of Novae Terrae, an anti-abortion organisation headed by his close friend, Luca Volantè, a politician with the now defunct Union of the Centre party and former chairman of the parliamentary group of the European People’s party.
Novae Terrae was an integral player in Agenda Europe, at least until Volantè was investigated for money laundering. Volantè was recently cleared of the allegations.
Pillon said he is aware of Agenda Europe, which he described as akin “to a group of friends getting together”, but never attended any of its meetings.
Pillon has a 20-year history of close relationships with Italian anti-abortion groups and attended a large anti-abortion demonstration in Rome on Saturday.
“I am from the pro-life world and then I entered into politics to bring forward the voice of the pro-life associations,” he said.
Pillon said he was “envious” of the situation regarding Roe v Wade in US, adding that a similar outcome would arrive in Europe “sooner or later”.
“It was an ideological current that brought the liberalisation of abortion to the US in the 1970s, which then led to European legislation being adapted to this way of thinking,” said Pillon. “I am convinced this new wave will [unfold] in Europe. I don’t know when, but I hope sooner rather than later.”
With the coalition of the League, Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia standing a good chance of winning general elections next spring, he may soon have even more power to influence abortion policy.
Meanwhile, PNfV will continue to strive to make waves. The speaker lineup at the Budapest summit includes politicians from Hungary, Spain and Slovakia.
Hungarian speakers include MEPs from the ruling Fidesz party, such as Balazs Hidveghi and Enikő Győri. Miklos Szánthó, the director of the Center for Fundamental Rights, who hosted CPAC Hungary last week, is also expected to speak, as is Zoltán Balogh, a commissioner to prime minister Orbán.
Hungary’s newly elected president and former families minister, Katalin Novák, had been a board member of PNfV since as early as 2015 and became its chairperson in 2019.
However, she resigned from the role in March after being elected Hungarian president. In comments to Breitbart in 2019, she said there is no “choice” when it comes to abortion. “Pro-abortion is pro-killing, it is against choice,” she said.
