European Abortion Policies Atlas 2025

The European Abortion Policies Atlas 2025 is a comprehensive overview of laws, policies, and access to abortion in 49 countries and territories across Europe. It serves as an important tool for policymakers, healthcare personnel, and civil society to monitor government progress and accountability in upholding sexual and reproductive rights.

European Abortion Policies Atlas 2025

Key Findings

The Atlas evaluates countries according to four key criteria: legal status, access, clinical care, and the provision of services and information.

Sweden (94.6%) and France (85.2%) achieved the best results thanks to strong legal protections that fully decriminalize abortion, as well as the broad availability of services covered by national health insurance. Information provided by the state is also accessible in these countries. Sweden and France both actively combat misinformation related to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) that circulates across countries.

Andorra, Malta, and Poland have the worst results, remaining at the bottom of the ranking. In these countries, abortion is largely criminalized with severe penalties; access and clinical care are very limited or unavailable; and the state does not provide information on abortion care.

Legal status: Although 48 countries allow abortion for certain reasons, only one country guarantees full freedom of access to abortion. Nine countries still regulate abortion within their criminal codes, exposing patients and healthcare providers to potential penalties.

Barriers to access: Abortion on request is available in 43 countries, but only 8 countries impose no mandatory barriers such as waiting periods, compulsory counseling, or third-party authorization.

Health insurance and service provision: Only 23 countries have public health insurance that covers abortion care, and in 11 countries, medication abortion (the pill method) is not available. Only 5 countries permit abortion care via telemedicine. Governments in 22 countries provide reliable online information about abortion services, and only 7 countries offer legal protection against harassment around clinics.

The Atlas urgently (and in line with WHO recommendations) calls on policymakers to:

• modernize abortion laws by decriminalizing them and removing them from criminal codes;
• ensure coverage within national health systems and treat abortion care like any other essential healthcare service;
• remove unnecessary barriers, including waiting periods, third-party permissions, and medically unwarranted procedures;
• provide accurate information and combat misinformation;
• conduct further research on key barriers such as stigma, geographic disparities, costs, denial of care, travel burdens, and adapt policymaking to research findings.