Jan 24, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

As European Union institutions and national governments increasingly advance policies expanding access to abortion, some observers have questioned whether the pro-life movement in Europe still exists or whether it has largely retreated from public life.

While large-scale demonstrations have become less common in some countries, pro-life advocates say a quieter, more grassroots movement is taking shape across the continent, driven largely by young people and focused less on political pressure and more on cultural engagement.

One organization at the center of this effort is ProLife Europe, a cross-border pro-life organization founded in 2019 and headquartered in Weißenhorn, Germany.

Operating on a far smaller budget than many U.S.-based pro-life organizations and funded primarily by individual donors, ProLife Europe has expanded rapidly across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Lithuania, and Poland.

The organization focuses on training young people to engage in calm, one-on-one conversations about abortion, human dignity, and the value of life, particularly in university settings and public spaces where pro-life views are often marginalized.

A response to fragmentation and polarization

While many European countries already have local pro-life initiatives, the founders of ProLife Europe said they saw a need for something more coordinated and culturally focused. They point to what they describe as the “widespread misinformation, polarization, and social fragmentation surrounding abortion” and sought to build a professional, internationally-oriented student network capable of engaging the issue at a deeper cultural level.

The organization officially launched in March 2019 shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely limited public gatherings and campus activity across Europe.

Despite those constraints, ProLife Europe adapted through online training and internal formation.

Leaders say interest among young people grew during this period, reinforcing their belief that many young Europeans are searching for new ways to think and speak about abortion beyond entrenched ideological positions.

By 2024, ProLife Europe had established 54 groups, trained 4,192 students, and conducted 285 outreaches.

A cultural, not political strategy

“Our focus is not on large demonstrations or political pressure,” said Maria Czernin, president of ProLife Europe. “It is on dialogue, meeting people where they are, and planting seeds.”

While the organization does not ignore political realities, Czernin said its work begins at a deeper level. “Laws follow culture, and without a cultural foundation, political victories remain fragile and reversible,” she explained.

Volunteers therefore prioritize personal encounters, often inviting passersby into respectful conversations that begin with open-ended questions — such as when human life begins or how society defines human dignity. Czernin explained that the aim is not to “win” arguments but to reopen moral reflection in a climate where abortion is frequently treated as unquestionable.

Addressing common misconceptions

According to its leaders, many conversations begin with assumptions that are rarely examined by most people.

“The most common misconception is that abortion is a woman’s right,” said Lucia Bardini, regional coordinator for southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. She noted that no such right has ever been declared by the United Nations.

Bardini added that abortion is often framed as a women-only issue, even though many of those involved in performing or enabling abortions are men, including physicians, hospital administrators, and partners of pregnant women.

Among male students, she said another recurring assumption is that they have no role in abortion decisions. “This relieves them of the responsibility that comes with being future fathers,” Bardini explained.

She also noted that some students view abortion as the only viable option when pursuing a university degree, particularly when academic demands, financial pressure, or time constraints seem incompatible with parenthood, an assumption she said overlooks available forms of support and alternative paths forward.

Responding without alienation

Asked how pro-life advocates can address the belief that abortion is a settled right without alienating people, Pedro Líbano Monteiro, regional coordinator for Portugal, discussed the importance of respectful questioning.

“Many rights that once seemed ‘settled’ in history were later questioned when society recognized that they involved the harm of others,” Monteiro noted.

He mentioned that conversations should begin by asking who is affected and whether the dignity of all involved is being considered. “Being pro-life is not about condemning women or ignoring hardship,” he said, but about recognizing that “both lives matter” and that society should offer better solutions than abortion, including practical support and solidarity.

Rather than accusations, Monteiro said, asking questions invites openness. Laws and social norms may change, he added, but the moral reality of human life does not.

A quiet but growing presence

While ProLife Europe does not claim to represent the entirety of Europe’s pro-life movement, its leaders see their work as part of a broader shift toward long-term cultural engagement in a highly secularized continent. “Our work is slow,” Czernin acknowledged. “But cultural change always is.”

Benjamin Famula, regional coordinator for northern Germany, said the pro-life movement’s future depends on a greater willingness to engage openly with difficult questions.

“We need more people from all walks of life who are aware of the abortion crisis not to look away but to speak out,” Famula said, adding that young people must have the courage to address these issues wherever they can.

He noted that pro-life views are often dismissed as marginal or extremist, a perception he said discourages active engagement and allows misconceptions to persist unchallenged. Famula also called for stronger leadership in public debate, urging advocates to move beyond a purely defensive posture and to highlight the social and economic pressures faced by women in crisis pregnancy situations.

For ProLife Europe’s leaders, the aim is neither immediate political change nor public visibility but something more incremental: reopening moral reflection in a culture where abortion is often treated as beyond question, one conversation at a time.

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Jan 23, 2026 / 18:54 pm (CNA).

Thousands of pro-lifers attended the  53rd annual March for Life on Friday in Washington, D.C. The 2026 event’s theme was “Life Is a Gift,” to invite “all people to rediscover the beauty, goodness, and joy of life itself,” the March For Life reported.

As attendees marched on the National Mall, they held signs, prayed, and sang their way toward the U.S. Capitol.

Scroll above to see some of the best signs that EWTN News spotted at the march.

Jan 23, 2026 / 18:34 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Thursday that it will stop funding research that uses fetal tissue of aborted babies.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, National Institutes of Health (NIH) director, said in a Jan. 22 statement that the agency has “reexamined its approach related to the use of human fetal tissue in federally funded research.”

“This decision is about advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease,” Bhattacharya added. “Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited ethical and scientific reasons for the change.

“HHS is ending the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in agency-funded research and replacing it with gold-standard science,” Kennedy said in a Jan. 23 statement. “The science supports this shift, the ethics demand it, and we will apply this standard consistently across the department.”

The agency also will look to “potentially replace reliance on human embryonic stem cells,” according to Bhattacharya.

Embryonic stem cell lines are lab-grown cell lines used in research that come from aborted human fetal tissue.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a neuroscientist and senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, called the move “a very welcome development.”

“Biomedical research should not be built on the backs of directly-aborted human fetuses or embryos, and taking their bodily tissues for research necessarily involves a failure to obtain valid informed consent, a key ethical principle guiding all modern bioresearch,” Pacholczyk told EWTN News.

Pacholczyk welcomed the NIH “taking steps to rein in past abuses involving aborted fetal tissue and NIH funding.”

“Several previous U.S. administrations dropped the ethical ball when it came to allowing human fetal tissues from elective abortions to be used in NIH-funded scientific investigations,” he said. “In effect, they set up a situation where fetal-tissue research faced very few practical barriers or limitations.”

Funding control is “a critical mechanism to avoid unethical research practices,” Pacholczyk noted.

“The granting of funding, especially federal funding, is one of the highest forms of approbation and blessing a researcher can obtain in terms of his or her particular line of work,” he said. “Disbursement of funding needs to be directly linked to our vision of good, ethical science.”

“The rest of the world’s scientific community looks to the U.S., and to NIH-funded research in particular, as a kind of model and example when it comes to real excellence in science,” Pacholczyk continued. “Such excellence connotes much more than merely developing scientific breakthroughs while ignoring the means used to make those discoveries; it necessarily implies conscientious attention to ethics.”

Jan 23, 2026 / 18:14 pm (CNA).

A broad range of life issues from abortion to euthanasia and more were represented at the March for Life 2026 in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, expressed concern about a number of states across the country poised to legalize assisted suicide. “There are many states that the death lobby will be pushing for assisted suicide in 2026,” he said.

“In 2026 we are very concerned about Virginia, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Connecticut, and other states,” he said, adding: “2026 will require a unified effort to stop the expansion of killing by assisted suicide poisoning.”

Ashley Kollme, a mother of five children from Bethesda, Maryland, shared the story of her pregnancy with her youngest daughter, Sophia, who is 2 years old.

“Sophia was diagnosed with a complex congenital heart condition when I was 23 weeks pregnant,” Kollme said. “The first option that was presented to us was termination, and that was never an option that we would consider, and we chose life.” Sophia has had two open heart surgeries and lots of other procedures, her mother said, adding: “And she is the light of our lives.”

Kollme’s two sons, Otto and Max, stood by with signs featuring pictures of their little sister.

Gesturing to the posters, which featured a professional photo of Sophia, Kollme said the little girl is “one of the poster children for Johns Hopkins Hospital.”

Ultimately, Kollme said, “I think that we see a lot of ableism and abortion against people with disabilities, and I’ve become passionate about that because every child deserves a life.”

“Deserving life shouldn’t be conditional upon one’s health,” she said.

Mara Oswalt, a March for Life participant from Atlanta, held a sign saying “Unborn children die in ICE detention” and emphasized the need to recognize the dignity of all human life. “I’ve heard several instances of women having miscarriages because they are not eating well, they’re not being treated well in ICE detention,” Oswalt said.

Oswalt serves as creative director of Rehumanize International, an organization dedicated to fostering a culture of peace and life in accordance with the “consistent life ethic,” which calls for opposition to threats against human life including abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, unjust war, and torture.

“Those stories in particular really break my heart,” she said. “I know those women wanted their children. They wanted them to be cared for. And so I didn’t want them to be forgotten in this moment.”