This Friday (8), France officially becomes the first country to guarantee abortion in its Magna Carta, during a public ceremony on Place Vendôme, a few meters from the Ministry of Justice.
The event was organized four days after parliamentarians voted at the Versailles Congress, which largely decided to approve the measure by 780 votes in favor and 72 against.
During his speech in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that, following his recent victory, he intended to expand access to voluntary termination of pregnancy to the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. Currently, abortion is legalized in most countries in the bloc, but with different restrictions and in no case guaranteed by the Constitution.
“If France has become the only country in the world whose Constitution explicitly protects abortion, we will only find rest when this promise is fulfilled throughout the world,” stated the French leader, who was the one who presented the proposal for Article 34 of the Constitution French language was changed to mention “the freedom of women to resort to abortion, which is guaranteed.” The country already allowed the termination of pregnancy up to 14 weeks after conception.
The insertion of the law into the Magna Carta was done manually with a 19th century printer, which sealed the change and officially made France a country that guarantees abortion practices in its basic legislation.
The French president began pushing for the measure after the United States Supreme Court overturned the case law of Roe vs. Wade, in 1973, and established that American states could re-legislate abortion as they preferred.
Since then, the inclusion of “access to abortion” has become one of the main focuses of Macron's government, which used the celebration of International Women's Day to “celebrate” the achievement.
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