(LifeSiteNews) — A prominent liberal cardinal has opposed the decision to officially enshrine abortion as a public “freedom” in the national constitution of Luxembourg.

The news follows a September 2025 decision by the nation’s Committee on Institutions and will be voted on in Luxembourg’s Chamber of Deputies: a motion that is expected to comfortably pass.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, Archbishop of Luxembourg, received broad criticism from journalists after he decried the move as “totalitarian,” questioning the necessity of the move by pointing out that abortions are already widely available and protected in national law.

“The right to voluntary abortion and the right to contraception are guaranteed. The law regulates the conditions under which these rights are exercised freely and effectively,” he said.

Luxembourg first liberalized abortion in 1978. By 2014, further reform had removed abortion from the Penal Code up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Today, it is completely decriminalized, and in July 2025, a mandatory three-day waiting period between when a pregnant woman first seeks a consultation and the procedure being carried out was scrapped.

The recent legislative proposal follows news that abortions have been rapidly increasing across the country – with a 58 percent increase reported in March 2024 by Die Tagespost.

Hollerich appealed to liberalism in his critique of the legislative proposal which he said marked a “sad day in history.”

Hollerich is reported to have based his arguments not upon the wrongness of abortion itself but instead upon the principles of liberal democracy, warning that the state should not decide for citizens “what I consider right and wrong.”

He added that the state ought not to be creating “something like a forced opinion that is being imposed on us. If one can no longer express oneself freely and can no longer simply say: ‘I have a different opinion,’ then our liberal democracy has taken on the characteristics of a totalitarian system.” He complained that the constitutional change would lead some Catholic citizens to “no longer feel at ease” in the country.

Hollerich finally argued against the policy move by warning that it would foster a “very dangerous tendency” to drive people to “far-right” politics.

In the same RTL Radio interview the cardinal made these comments, he later went on to praise the ruling Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) which is moving in favor of this amendment.

RTL reported Hollerich claimed the party leader “understands the significant role religion plays in society.”

However, the news that Luxembourg will enshrine abortion in its constitution follows an internal vote by the CSV in which 90 percent of its national council voted in its favour. A September 2025 party press conference strongly reaffirmed its “clear commitment to women’s rights and their freedom of choice.”

The CSV, led by Prime Minister Luc Frieden, amended the initial push for the constitutional amendment which at first advocated for abortion’s enshrinement as an absolute “right.” CSV influence, working closely and negotiating with the other parties in the Chamber of Deputies, has successfully argued that this should instead be a “freedom” – a definition they argue will protects doctors’ freedom of conscience.

All parties in the Chamber of Deputies support the proposal (though there are a few dissenting members) apart from the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR).

ADR politician Fred Keup told the press: “It’s still the same question of when life begins. Some see it one way, others another, but I think it’s important to respect those who believe that this goes against the right to life and that it’s not a good thing.”

Meanwhile, the Luxembourgish left has attacked Hollerich and Catholic opposition to the move.

Hollerich, who was a close ally of and elevated to the cardinalate by Pope Francis, and who does not believe homosexual relationships are sinful, was accused of being “reactionary and totalitarian” in his “spiritual ideology” by socialist MP Taina Offerding. She called his comments “completely off the mark” and decried them as “unrealistic.”

Green MP Sam Tenson complained that the cardinal should “be more careful with his words on such a sensitive issue … [b]ecause the price many women have to pay if abortion is not a right is their lives,” adding that, “If I were in a club where I forbade my priests from having children, I would keep things a bit lighter.”