The Catholic bishops’ conference of the European Union (COMECE) has issued a statement of “deep concern and opposition” over the call by French President Emmanuel Macron for an explicit recognition of legal abortion as a human right.

The COMECE statement recalls that the European Union was founded on a shared set of principles, and “one of the main values is the respect for the dignity of every human person in every stage of his or her life.” The bishops conclude that “there is no recognized right to abortion in European or international law.”

The bishops’ statement comes just under three weeks after the French president made his recommendation.