Strasbourg, France (LifeNews.com) -- Members of the European Parliament are getting encouragement from pro-life advocates to support amendments to the budget to revoke funding from groups that promote coercive abortions or involuntary sterilizations as part of their family planning programs in other nations.

If the MEPs approve the language later this week, this will be the second time they would have supported such amendments.

CARE for Europe, supported by the British pro-life group SPUC, is leading the charge for the amendments.

"As in previous years CARE For Europe, along with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is campaigning for specific wording to be included in the European Commission's annual budget for overseas development," she group said in an alert SPUC sent LifeNews.com.

The amendment would "prevent any funds going to organizations or countries which are complicit in promoting family planning programs which include an element of compulsion (e.g. coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization)."

This amendment was actually passed in 2007 and included in the 2008 budget, but abortion advocates are opposing it this time around.

"The pro-abortion lobby are, however, now saying this amendment should be opposed, because they say it is an attack on the so-called right to abortion. This is not the case," CARE for Europe says. "All that is being called for is that there should be no element of compulsion in these matters. Such compulsion is an abuse of human rights and makes women have something done to them that they have not freely chosen."

Another amendment supported by CARE for Europe, SPUC and other pro-life groups is against sex-selective abortion.

"Projects funded by this budget title must not pursue gender-based eugenic discrimination, which is increasingly common in certain countries, or any other form of discrimination against girls (at any point after conception)," this second amendment reads.

These amendments will be voted on by MEPs this Thursday the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg.

ACTION: To find out who your MEPs are and how to contact them, please visit http://is.gd/4r6e4 and pick your region. For an easy way to email all your MEPs, please visit http://is.gd/4r6fL

Related web sites:
CARE for Europe - http://www.careforeurope.org
SPUC - http://www.spuc.org.uk

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