France is preparing to enshrine the constitutional right to abortion
French lawmakers are expected to approve a measure on Monday that would make France the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine access to abortion in its constitution.
To implement the constitutional amendment, three-fifths approval is needed from the assembled lawmakers from both houses of Parliament. But with 90 percent of lawmakers backing the measure in previous votes, the vote is widely seen as a formality before a celebration in the regal setting of the Palace of Versailles, where the joint session of Parliament is held.
The amendment would declare abortion a “guaranteed freedom” overseen by Parliament’s laws. That means future governments would not be able to “dramatically change” current laws that fund abortions for women who want them up to 14 weeks into their pregnancy, French Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said.
The impetus for the change was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. But it also reflects the broad support for abortion in France, which has built up over the years, and a successful campaign by a coalition of feminist activists and lawmakers.
“We are saying today that we do not envision a democratic society without the right to abortion — that it is not an accessory, but the core of our society,” said Mélanie Vogel, a Green Party senator who is a major force behind the bill. “We are no longer France without the right to abortion.”
In an interview, Ms. Vogel said: “I want to send a message to feminists outside France. A year ago everyone told me this was impossible.” She added: “Nothing is impossible if you mobilize society.”
The city council of Paris has placed a screen on Trocadéro Square – near the building where members of the United Nations General Assembly signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 – to Live broadcast a “historic victory for women’s rights.”
The Episcopal Conference, which represents the Catholic Church in France, was against the amendment, as do activist anti-abortion groups. But in a country where calls for protest regularly bring hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets, opposition has been remarkably sparse.
If the day goes as expected, France will become the first country in the world to explicitly write abortion access into its constitution, five constitutional experts said.
“It’s not about reproductive choices or the right to have children; it is a completely different language when you say access to abortion,” says Anna Sledzinska-Simon, professor of comparative constitutions and human rights law at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. “The French call it by its name – that is crucial.” She added: “The whole world is watching.”
The amendment also broadens the country’s founding text, written by men for men, while ignoring their dependence on women, constitutional experts say.
“It’s a big milestone because it sets the stage for this idea that constitutions were about men’s autonomy,” Ruth Rubio-Marín said. author of a book on gender and constitutions. “Women’s role as citizens was made essential and defined as breeders and caretakers,” she said. “That was omitted. It was simply adopted as part of the modern society that was being built.”
Other constitutions, especially in younger democracies like Ecuador, have expanded their scope to include issues such as support for caregiving and the equal division of domestic labor. But they often remain ambitious rather than feasible, said Ms. Rubio-Marín, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Seville in Spain.
“For this to happen in the old world, in an established democracy where the constitution is taken seriously – in that way it is historic,” she said.
France decriminalized abortion in 1975, with a temporary law that limited access to health services that terminated a pregnancy. Since then, the law has become permanent and continually expanded to the point that it is now considered one of the most liberal in Europe. This includes the right to fully funded abortions for women and minors, up to fourteen weeks’ gestation, on request, with no waiting period and no required counseling sessions.
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.
After the Covid pandemic hit, France quickly ensured that women seeking abortions could still get virtual medical consultations, says Laura Rahm, a researcher at the Central European University in Vienna who spent five years blocking access to abortion in France investigated. European study.
“A system always shines or cracks when it is put under pressure,” she says. The French system shone brightly, she said.
Still, studies shows that 17 percent of women travel outside their region – called departments in France – for abortion services, sometimes due to a growing shortage of medical facilities locally.
And while the law states that women should have the choice between medical or surgical abortions, in practice that is not the case, says Sarah Durocher, national co-president of Le Planning Familial, a French equivalent of Planned Parenthood.
Including the “guaranteed freedom” to have an abortion in the constitution means that will have to change, she said.
“This will lead to other things,” Ms. Durocher said, noting that 130 abortion centers have closed in France in the past decade. “For example, real policies so that there is effective access to abortion.”
Despite the new amendment, French feminists say France is still a male-dominated society sexism persists.
But unlike in the United States, the issue of abortion in France is not politically charged and highly divisive. Instead, most French people believe that abortion is a basic health care provision and a women’s right. A recent one Survey in 29 countries showed the largest support for legalized abortion in France in the world after Sweden.
However, efforts to include abortion in the Constitution failed before the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade. This move spurred French lawmakers to protect abortion, introducing multiple bills within months. Last year, the government submitted its own bill that enshrines this in the Constitution.
Lawmakers worked with feminist organizations to mount a pressure campaign that reached directly into politicians’ homes. That’s what a senator said to the Parisian newspaper that women in his family, including his partner, were so angry that he had voted against the change the first time that he decided not to do so again.
Yet last week, members of that coalition were concerned that the Senate, dominated by conservatives, would thwart the amendment. Instead, they voted in favor of it by a vote of 267 to 50.
“We were able to create an environment where if you voted against this change, it meant that as a legislator you wanted to preserve the right to potentially ban abortion in the future,” Ms. Vogel said. “So if you’re not against abortion, you had no reason not to vote for it.”
She added: “That story permeated society.”
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed to the reporting.