French Senate backs enshrining right to abortion in constitution
The Senate, France’s upper house of parliament, has overwhelmingly passed a measure to include women’s right to abortion in the country’s constitution.
The proposal, which had previously received approval from the National Assembly, the lower house, was supported by a vote of 267 to 50 on Wednesday.
Abortion has been legal in France since 1974, but there has been increasing pressure to solidify it further in law.
Concerns have been raised about the erosion of abortion rights in allied nations such as the US and Poland.
French President Emmanuel Macron has scheduled a special joint vote on Monday, involving both houses convening in the suburb of Versailles away from Paris.
If the joint session approves the constitutional amendment by a majority of at least three-fifths, a referendum will not be necessary.
An Ifop opinion poll conducted in November 2022, during the National Assembly’s consideration of the legislation, indicated that 86% of the population supported the amendment.
While none of the country’s major political parties dispute the right to abortion, the language of the amendment was revised after the 2022 vote in the National Assembly, which endorsed the “right” to abortion.
Last month it voted again to back the “freedom” to have an abortion after Mr. Macron’s government called for Article 34 of the constitution to be amended to cite “the freedom of women to have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed”.
This new wording on “guaranteed freedom” was approved by the Senate on Wednesday.
Posting on X, Mr Macron said he was committed to making women’s freedom to resort to termination “irreversible” by inscribing it in the constitution.
Reacting to the vote, Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said his country was close to a “historic day” when it becomes “the first country in the world to protect in its constitution the freedom of women” to decide what happens to their bodies.
Speaking to AFP news agency, several conservative senators said they had felt under pressure to approve the amendment.
“If I vote against it, my daughters will no longer come for Christmas,” said one woman, who asked to remain anonymous.
The debate over abortion has raged in the US since the Supreme Court there rescinded the nationwide right to a termination in June 2022.
As of last month, 21 of the country’s 50 states have either total or partial abortion bans on the books, with some including harsh punishments for doctors and others who assist in accessing the procedure, including jail time, steep fines, and the loss of medical licenses.
Poland’s Constitutional Court imposed a near-total ban on abortion in that country in 2020. It is now permitted only in cases of rape or incest or when pregnancy threatens a mother’s health or life.
