France created history by becoming the first country in the world to make women’s abortion rights into its constitution. On Monday the legislators from both houses of the French parliament voted in acceptance of women’s right to abortion in the French constitution.
The bill was approved by both houses of legislators with a majority of 780 to 70, gaining a three-fourth majority to amend the French constitution. The US Supreme Court in 2022 turned over the Roe v. Wade verdict that admitted women’s constitutional right to abortion. This move came as a direct response to the judgment. France launched a movement to express protection of the rights in its fundamental law.
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged that France would guarantee women’s right to abortion was safeguarded if any moves restricted its access in the future. The amendment to Article 34 of the Constitution would preserve a woman’s guaranteed freedom to have recourse to an abortion.
The final step in the legislative process was held on Monday during a special gathering of legislators at the Palace of Versailles, southwest of Paris. Earlier, this year the French Senate and National Assembly approved the amendment.
As per the amendment, abortion is a guaranteed freedom in France. Some groups and legislators had called for powerful wording that would specify abortion as a right. The lawmakers praised the action, which established support for reproductive rights at a time when abortion rights are under attack in the US and also in parts of Europe, like Hungary, where far-right parties have come to power.
In France, abortion was legalized in 1975 after a campaign led by the Beth minister Simon Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who became one of the country’s most famous feminist icons. In 2022 the legal limit for abortion was raised from 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Amidst outrage that the French women were coerced to travel abroad for abortion.
Prime Minister Gabrial Attal before the vote said that legislators had a moral debt to women, who had been forced to undergo illegal abortions previously. He also said that above all they are sending a message to all women that “your body belongs to you”.
After the outcome of the vote, the Eiffel Tower lit with the words “My body, my choice”. Macon declared that the amendment would be engraved in the constitution on Friday, March 8 - International Women's Day and a formal ceremony would be celebrated in central Paris.
(Input from various sources)
(Rehash/Lavanya Beeraboina/MSM)
