Metropolis Desk-
France is now the only nation to expressly guarantee a woman’s right to choose to end her pregnancy on her terms after lawmakers there decisively approved a bill on Monday to include abortion rights in the country’s constitution.
President Emmanuel Macron suggested the historic action to stop the kind of abortion rights reversal that has been observed in the US in recent years. The voting took place during a special joint session of the French parliament, and MPs applauded the decision for a considerable amount of time.
In the Palace of Versailles, the vote was 780 to 72 in favor of the proposition. Abortion has been legal in France since 1975 and is widely supported throughout the country’s political spectrum.
A good many of the female lawmakers in the hall shouted and grinned widely. There were joyful scenes of jubilation across France as women’s rights advocates applauded the step promised by Macron within hours of the Dobbs ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, while a small handful of demonstrators stood outside the joint session.
The U.S. decision has had a ripple effect on European politics, bringing the topic back into the open in certain nations at a time when far-right nationalist groups are becoming more powerful.
A bill to modify Article 34 of the French Constitution had been independently approved by the National Assembly and Senate of France, but it still needed to be ratified by a three-fifths majority in the special joint session of parliament. “The law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed,” according to the measure.
The 1974 constitution of the former Yugoslavia stated that “a person is free to decide on having children,” but the French law is thought to go further than that. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, all of its successor governments enacted comparable constitutional provisions that permit women to obtain abortions on a legal basis even though they do not expressly guarantee them.
Before the vote, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal gave a speech to the over 900 legislators present at the joint session in Versailles, urging them to establish France as a global leader in women’s rights and serve as a role model for other nations.
Attal declared, “We owe women a moral obligation.” He honored Simone Veil, a well-known lawmaker, former health minister, and influential feminist who supported the French abortion decriminalization bill in 1975.
“We possess the opportunity to alter history,” Attal stated in a poignant and resolute address. In response to a standing ovation, he stated, “Make Simone Veil proud.”
Not even the conservative Republicans or Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party have questioned the right to an abortion in France.
In addition to stating that “there is no need to make this a historic day,” Le Pen, who two years ago won a record number of seats in the National Assembly, announced on Monday that her party intended to vote in support of the bill.
According to a recent poll, over 80% of French people support the right to an abortion, which is in line with earlier findings. A clear majority of respondents to the same survey supported its inclusion in the constitution.
Before the vote, some 200 opponents of abortion congregated solemnly in Versailles, some of them carrying a banner that said, “I too was an embryo.”
When the results of the referendum were announced, a bigger group of women’s rights activists gathered at Trocadero Plaza, which has a view of the Eiffel Tower, let out a collective yell of jubilation. Even before the joint parliamentary session started, there were celebrations held throughout France.
Family planning activist Sarah Durocher declared that Monday’s decision was “a victory for feminists and a defeat for the anti-choice activists.”
“We strengthened the protection for this essential right,” the Women’s Foundation’s Anne-Cécile Mailfert stated. “The right to an abortion is a guarantee for women in France, both now and in the future.”
In the bill’s introduction, the government contended that the right to an abortion is endangered in the US since the Supreme Court reversed a 50-year-old decision that had guaranteed it in 2022.
The French legislation’s introduction states, “Unfortunately, this event is not isolated: There are currents of opinion that seek to hinder at all costs the freedom of women to terminate their pregnancy if they wish.” This is true in many nations, including Europe.
Professor of law and authority on both French and American constitutional law Mathilde Philip-Gay stated, “It may not be an issue in France, where the majority of people support abortion.” But what happened in the United States could happen anywhere in Europe, including France, and the same individuals might eventually vote for a far-right administration.” It won’t stop abortion opponents from challenging these rights in the long run, with the right political strategy,” Philip-Gay continued, adding that including abortion in the French Constitution “will make it harder for them to challenge these rights in the future.”
The first female president of the French parliament, Yael Braun-Pivet, told the joint session, “It only takes a moment for everything we thought that we have achieved to fade away.”
In France, amending the constitution is an uncommon and lengthy process. There have been seventeen amendments to the French Constitution since it was adopted in 1958.
On Friday, International Women’s Day, in Vendome Plaza in Paris, the new amendment will be legally incorporated into the Constitution, according to the minister of justice.
Source- Reuters
