France is moving closer to enshrining access to abortion in its constitution

France has moved a step closer to enshrining access to abortion in its constitution after senators on Wednesday backed a bill to include it as a “guaranteed freedom.”

Before the constitutional amendment becomes official, it must be approved by three-fifths of all lawmakers at a special meeting called a congress, which is scheduled for Monday and is seen by many as a rubber stamp as both houses have already overwhelmingly supported the bill . .

Although many French politicians take this step for granted for the country that created universal human rights, they also admitted that the trigger came from across the ocean, namely the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn human rights . Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Within weeks, many bills were introduced to enshrine abortion rights in France so that they would not be repealed by a future government seeking to restrict abortion.

“It is always too late if we wait until a right is threatened to protect it,” Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti told senators. He added: “The freedom of abortion is not like the others because it allows people to decide their future. If democracy is to control its destiny, women must be able to control their destiny.”

Rather than declaring abortion a right, the change would declare abortion a “guaranteed freedom” overseen by Parliament’s laws.

During a long debate, it became clear that the senators were aware that with the vote they were making history and sending a signal to the world.

Mélanie Vogel, a Green Party senator and a key driving force behind the bill, said the decision would “unequivocally state that the right to abortion is not a subright, but a fundamental right. It is a condition for freedom in free and equal societies.”

“Backstreet abortionists, coat hangers, knitting needles – never again,” she added during the debate. “Let us say to our daughters, our nieces and our granddaughters: today and from now on, you are free to choose your life, forever.”

Few of the 50 senators who opposed the measure made anti-abortion arguments, which are not common in France. Most of the backlash focused on the feeling that the change was unnecessary because abortion rights in the country are not threatened, and that the change could introduce a hierarchy of freedoms into the constitution. Critics of the measure also argued that it would do little to improve access to abortion for French women living in medical deserts.

“It enshrines a symbol in the constitution,” said Muriel Jourda, a senator with the conservative party, the Republicans. “Is it the role of the Constitution to send messages to the rest of humanity? Personally, I don’t think so.”

Although the legislation is much weaker than many previous bills, feminists and lawmakers still applauded the move.

“Our grandchildren will never have to fight for an abortion,” said Sarah Durocher, national co-chair of Le Planning Familial, a French equivalent of Planned Parenthood. “We want to make this an echo for feminists around the world. We needed a win.”

France decriminalized abortion in 1975, when Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and health minister, pushed for forward an invoice focused primarily on public health issues and not on women’s rights over their bodies, said Bibia Pavard, a historian who co-wrote a book on the Veil law.

After the bill became law, it aligned with the feminist movement, and Ms. Veil emerged as a national hero and feminist icon. But due to opposition within Ms. Veil’s own Conservative party, the original law was quite restrictive.

Since then, Parliament has continuously voted to expand and expand the scope of the law, to the point that it is considered one of the most supportive of access to abortion in Europe: it allows fully funded abortions for women and minors up to the 14th week of pregnancy. , without waiting time or required substantiation.

Later abortions are permitted if the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s physical or mental health, or if the fetus has certain abnormalities.

Since 2001, an average of one in four pregnancies in France has been terminated by abortion Chamber report 2020.

Unlike in the United States, where passionate debate over abortion has saturated politics, the courts and personal relationships, in France the issue is largely considered resolved and is not a political flashpoint. There have been no effective political efforts to restrict abortion in the country in the past half century, and most French people support the right to abortion. Protests against abortion attract relatively few people.

An opinion poll A survey conducted in late 2022 found that 86 percent of respondents supported the “constitutionalization” of abortion.

Although French lawmakers have previously proposed including abortion in the constitution, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has given the effort a boost.

In November, French lawmakers in the lower house, the National Assembly, supported a proposal to enshrine abortion in the Constitution and calls it a right. The right-leaning Senate later amended the bill, replacing the term “right” with the “freedom” of women to terminate their pregnancies.

The latest version of the bill, which was presented by the government as a compromise, was re-adopted by the National Assembly in January.

The concerns raised by the Roe v. Wade decision have led to a flood of French petitions, open letters in the newspapers and pressure campaigns on politicians from voters, including their own relatives, to approve the bill.

“Women’s rights are reversible – you’re never sure if you’ve really won,” says Geneviève Fraisse, a French feminist philosopher. “The proof is in the United States.”

“The ownership of your body, that should be a right,” she said in an interview, noting that she was wary of the word “freedom.” “Article 4 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen says that my freedom ends where another’s begins. There is the question of the other: does that include what is in a woman’s womb?

The term ‘guaranteed liberty’ is new in the French Constitution and its meaning is unclear.

“It is not something common in French constitutional semantics,” said Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez, a professor of public law at the University of Paris-Nanterre, who has worked with lawmakers on many different versions of the bill. “It’s hard to say what it means from a technical point of view, although politically you can understand what it means,” she added.

The big question, she said, is how France’s Constitutional Council, a top body tasked with ensuring laws comply with the constitution, would interpret the term “guaranteed freedom” when examining new legislation restricting access to abortion. In that way, the change can provide a false sense of security, she said.

Still, compared to the debate in the United States, the French legislation “does something quite important,” Ms. Hennette-Vauchez said, contrasting the Roe v. Wade decision. “This couldn’t happen in France, once you put ‘guaranteed freedom’ in the constitution.”

A small group of anti-abortion activists gathered Wednesday to protest the vote. Many covered their mouths with a red and white cloth.

“We are gagged just like those unborn children,” said Marie-Lys Pellissier, communications director of the March for Life, an annual demonstration.

But they were a small minority.

“Long live abortion,” shouted a woman passing by on her bicycle, with a toddler on the back.

Ségolène Le Stradic contributed to the reporting.