France is on a complicated path Add abortion rights to your Constitution. The French Government will this week submit a bill to the Council of State that would give constitutional value to the voluntary termination of pregnancy, a necessary procedure for legal initiatives. Legalized in 1974 in the neighboring country. It was introduced by France Insumisa (then affiliated with Sumar) almost a year ago after the National Assembly passed a bill aimed at the same goal. The executive is now promoting this measure with a view to reaching agreement on the same text in the Lower House and the Senate.
In France, you can hold a referendum to reform the Constitution or have the Assembly and Senate approve the same text with the same result. Support of 60% of MPs and senators in the same vote. French President Emmanuel Macron seems to prefer this second option. “In 2024, women’s freedom to have IVG (abortion) will become irreversible,” said the centrist leader on social network X (formerly Twitter).
Obstacle before the Senate
After the National Assembly passed a bill in November 2022 to include the right to abortion in Magna Carta, the Senate followed suit earlier this year. However, the Upper House changed the text. It changed the word “right” to “freedom of women to have an abortion.” It won’t be an easy job Get together 60% of MPs and senators who agree on the same formulation of this constitutional reform. Majority of representatives in the Senate Republicans (affiliated with LR, PP). And some of them support very conservative assumptions, without completely opposing the voluntary termination of pregnancy.
According to the newspaper Tribune du DimancheThe executive branch may choose to add language to the Constitution that reads: “The law determines the conditions under which a woman’s guaranteed freedom to voluntarily terminate her pregnancy can be exercised.”. This would represent a mixed formula between those approved in the House and Senate.
Threat from the far right
“We would definitely write differently. (…) But the most important thing is that IVG is included in the Constitution. We also saw it in countries like. Poland, Hungary or the United States. When the far right or conservative right comes to power, the first thing threatened is abortion. “France will not be an exception,” feminist Sarah Durocher, president of the Family Planning Association, told the progressive newspaper. Liberation.
Beyond its symbolic value, the very fact of constitutionalizing abortion aims to ensure the continuation of this right and prevent its suppression by hypothetical ultraconservative governments. However, in the French case, both far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour are defending the current law. This allows for all women, both adults and minors (in this case with parental permission), up to the seventh week of pregnancy. If this complex legislative pathway is completed, the neighboring country The first in the world to give constitutional values the right to terminate a pregnancy.