The French deputies and senators, meeting in a joint session, adopted this Monday by a majority, the registration of abortion in the Constitution, a reform that they considered “historic.”
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In total, 780 of the 925 parliamentarians adopted a constitutional reform that will modify article 34 of the Magna Carta to include “the guaranteed freedom of women to resort to voluntary interruption of pregnancy.” So, France becomes the first country to shield this practice and seeks to send a message to the world after several setbacks.
The project, launched by the president, Emmanuel Macron, to preserve that right threatened in other countries, had great popular support and obtained support from all political parties, without reservations on the left and more conditional on the right and extreme right.
Almost half a century after its decriminalization in France, there is broad social support, but The decision of the United States Supreme Court in 2022 to stop recognizing it as a federal right set off alarms.
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The illustrious Congress hall, created at the end of the 19th century in the palace of Versailles, southwest of Paris, was the scene of the debate, which finally makes this right “irreversible,” according to President Emmanuel Macron.
This extraordinary Congress, which brings together both chambers of Parliament, puts an end to a long legislative process, promoted by the left and the ruling party.months after the American setback.
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“We hope to transmit this positive energy to women and feminists in the world,” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert, of the Women's Foundation. “The collapse of the right to abortion in the United States shocked us, it devastated us,” she added.
Before France's historic decision, Chile attempted to introduce the right for women to “a voluntary interruption of pregnancy” in its draft new Constitution in 2022, which Chileans rejected in a referendum.
We hope to transmit this positive energy to women and feminists in the world.
On the opposite side, some countries implicitly prohibit it in their fundamental law by protecting the right to life from conception, as in the case of the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Madagascar, Honduras and El Salvador.
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“If I were French, I would be fighting for this constitutional change,” Salvadoran feminist leader Morena Herrera told the French newspaper Libération in 2023, for whom this “will have repercussions on the rest of the world.”
'Suppressing a human life'
This activist then received the Simone Veil award, created in 2019 in honor of this French minister, an icon of female emancipation and a Holocaust survivor who achieved the decriminalization of abortion in 1975.
In 2022, the deadlines were extended to 14 weeks in France, where The number of voluntary terminations of pregnancy carried out has remained stable for two decades at around 230,000 annually..
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However, Access is “quite difficult” in rural areas, centrist deputy Éleonore Caroit explained to AFP, for whom constitutionalization will allow “strengthening access to abortion in those places.”.
Although around 80% of French people support the protection of abortion in the Constitution, according to polls, the bishops, opposed to the measure, called this Monday for “fasting and prayer.”
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“In the era of universal human rights, there can be no 'right' to take human life”The Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican body in charge of bioethics issues, said in a statement.
In parallel to the Congress, The anti-abortion organization March for Life called for a demonstration in Versailles, “to defend the lives of unborn children and all victims of abortion.”“.
Supporters of this constitutional reform followed this historic vote on the Trocadéro esplanade, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, thanks to a giant screen installed by the Paris mayor's office and the Women's Foundation.
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Following the planned approval of Congress, the final ceremony of inscribing abortion in the Constitution, in the presence of Macron, could take place on March 8, International Women's Day, according to a knowledgeable source.
EFE AND AFP
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