After a French constitutional change, a seal is normally placed on the revised law during a small, private ceremony. Not this time. The fact that abortion has been included in the law after the French parliament convincingly voted in favor of it earlier this week should be celebrated in a big way, President Emmanuel Macron must have thought.
So this Friday, not coincidentally International Women's Day, he organized a public meeting at Paris's Place Vendôme, where the Ministry of Justice is located. Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti, flanked by Macron and under the watchful eye of countless cameras, representatives of feminist organizations, politicians and hundreds of other attendees, left the seal stamp on the paper to fail.
This makes France the first country in the world to include “the guaranteed freedom of women to exercise the right to abortion” in its constitution, Macron said, beaming in the winter sun. He also promised to fight for abortion to be enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. “We will only find peace when this promise is fulfilled everywhere in the world.”
With the ceremony, Macron wants to show everyone that he is the first head of state in the world to enshrine abortion in a constitution. And it's not just the president who wants to benefit from this moment: politicians from all sides of the political spectrum are falling over each other this week to show that they too are in favor of enshrining abortion in the constitution.
This is not surprising for the progressive parties, which, together with feminist organizations, were the driving force behind the constitutional amendment. But conservative France is also pro-abortion. “This essential freedom for women is now written in stone in our Constitution and this is excellent news!” tweeted chairman Éric Ciotti of the conservative right-wing party Les Républicains. Chairman of the radical right Rassemblement National (RN) Jordan Bardella said on TV that he is “happy.”
'Not anymore bon ton'
It shows that criticizing the right to abortion in France not done has become, says Véronique Sehier, former vice-president of the French family planning organization Planning Familial. She conducted research into the development of “sexual and reproductive rights in Europe” for the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, a kind of French SER.
“You see that the tone has changed among parties that previously spoke out in favor of restricting the right to abortion,” she says. For example, Marine Le Pen, leader of RN, wanted to abolish abortion fees ten years ago to combat “convenience abortions”, where women would choose abortion “out of convenience” instead of using contraception.
Sehier sees a similar shift among anti-abortion organizations. “It is no more bon ton to say out loud: we are against abortion. Instead, for example, they say that it can have painful consequences, or they show women who supposedly still regret their choice for abortion after ten years.”
In other European countries too, it is no longer worthwhile for conservative and radical right parties to challenge the right to abortion. Sehier: “It is not without reason [de in 2022 verkozen radicaal-rechtse premier van Italië] Giorgia Meloni did not immediately commit herself to abortion.”
Stricter rules were 'wrong'
The best example is Poland: after politically appointed judges practically banned abortion under the previous government of the conservative-nationalist PiS party – since the 1990s abortion had only been permitted in cases of rape, danger to the life of the mother and congenital defects in the child, judges removed the latter category – the party was punished in the parliamentary elections last fall.
Women and young people in particular – groups that previously often stayed at home – voted en masse for parties other than PiS, after they had previously taken to the streets to protest against strict abortion legislation. It showed that when politics affects personal freedoms, it only fuels the anger of residents. It yields little electorally.
PiS now seems to realize this: former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki acknowledges that the stricter abortion rules were “a mistake.” And says “together with many PiS colleagues” that he is in favor of undoing the stricter rules and returning to the decades-long status quo in Poland, where abortion was also possible in the event of a child's congenital defects.
Even in the United States, pollsters saw Republican voters overflow to the Democratic Party because they feared further restrictions on abortion options after the Supreme Court struck down the national right to abortion in June 2022. Compared to the European average, relatively many people in the US are against the right to abortion; according to research by the French think tank Fondapol 33 percent compared to an EU average of 17 percent. The Democrats will do everything they can to make abortion the issue in the run-up to the presidential elections this fall.
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The change in tone is a response to the American decision, but also a consequence of the expansion of abortion legislation in many other countries. “Great strides have been made in recent years,” says Sehier. Even in Catholic countries such as Ireland (in 2018) and Argentina (in 2020), abortion is now allowed. Organization data Center for Reproductive Rights show that in the past thirty years, more than sixty countries have legalized abortion – and only three have legally restricted its permissibility. “It is a hopeful trend for countries where the right to abortion is still being fought for, such as Malta.”
Yet it cannot be said with certainty that the trend will continue, says historian Maria Mesner, former head of gender studies at the University of Vienna. “While access to abortion is included in the constitution in France, the United States – also a developed Western country – has made abortion more difficult.”
Not always accessible
Legalizing abortion does not mean that abortion is immediately available to every woman who needs it, both experts emphasize. “There are many ways to make access to abortion difficult,” says Sehier. “In this way, very strict deadlines can be set within which the abortion must take place.” In France, this term remains unchanged despite the constitutional amendment sixteen weeks after the last period – The Netherlands has a relatively long period of 24 weeks. “In Catholic countries such as Italy and Ireland, a large proportion of healthcare workers refuse to perform abortions. Some countries have a mandatory reflection period.” In the Netherlands, the mandatory reflection period of five days was abolished last year.
Mesner also mentions that some countries do not allow abortion in public clinics, or that health insurance does not cover the treatment. In Hungary, since 2022, women have had to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before making their choice.
And there are regional differences within countries. For example, in France only doctors are allowed to perform abortions (midwives and nurses are not), but due to enormous doctor shortages, these are not always available – especially in rural areas. Mesner: “Here in Austria it is easier to get treatment in Vienna than in the west of the country.” Vulnerable women are most often the victims of these types of restrictions, says Sehier. “Women with resources – money, a car – can go to another doctor, to another region or even to another country to get the abortion.”
Deaths
In Poland, the new government has promised to ease access to abortion again, but it has not yet decided how it will do this. Two of the four coalition parties want a free abortion choice, the other two want to hold a referendum. In the meantime, doctors continue to refuse abortion treatments – even if they are allowed by law.
Doctors do this out of principle, because of threats from anti-abortion activists or because they could be prosecuted. In Poland, abortion is not punishable, but doctors and others who help terminate pregnancies are punishable. The situation in Poland has led to a handful of deaths of women who had been denied abortion in recent years. In recent years, many Polish women have moved to the Netherlands to visit abortion clinics there.
Although a progressive wind seems to be blowing in the field of abortion, Sehier is not confident that parties such as Rassemblement National are really pro-abortion. “Le Pen was the one who talked about abortions of convenience, it was her party that in 2015 argued for the removal of Planning Familial subsidies.” This organization is not only involved in family planning
with sex education. “And in the European Parliament, RN has never voted in favor of improving abortion rights,” she sums up. “They are now only voting in favor of enshrining it in the constitution because they do not want to appear frumpy.”
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