The French National Assembly approved a bill on Tuesday night (30 January) to enshrine in the Constitution a law that “guarantees freedom” for women to have access to abortion.
“This evening, the National Assembly and the government have not missed their rendezvous with women’s history”, the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti said after the vote, which was carried with 493 votes for, 30 against, and 23 abstentions.
All left-wing MPs, and almost all members of President Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance and the independent Liot group, voted in favour of the text, amid concerns that this right is being questioned in the United States and some European countries.
On the right wing, the conservative group Les Républicains (LR, EPP) was split (40 in favour, 15 against and four abstentions), as was Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN, ID), with 46 for, 12 against and 14 abstentions.
“This victory sounds like revenge against the shame, the secrecy, the silence, the suffering and the death that hundreds of thousands of women have had to face,” said left-wing MP Mathilde Panot (La France Insoumise), LF, while Marie-Noël Battistel (Parti socialiste, PS) called it “a major feminist victory”.
Some MPs expressed concerns in particular regarding the conscience clause for doctors who refuse to perform abortions, without the Constitutional Council being able to oppose it if the bill passes.
“This bill does not create an enforceable right” to abortion, warned MP Guillaume Gouffier Valente (Renaissance).
The text must now be adopted by the Senate, or the upper house, on 28 February. However, the vote of the senators remains uncertain as Senate President Gérard Larcher (LR) indicated he was not in favour of the bill, saying that “abortion not under threat” in France.
Even though Larcher himself does not vote, his opinion could have an impact, especially as the Senate has a right-wing majority.
“We will take the time we need to see this review through,” Dupond-Moretti told MPs last week.
If the Senate rejects the bill, the text will be sent back to the National Assembly, where MPs will have to rewrite it to make it acceptable for the upper house.
A not-so-personal opinion on access to abortion in France
The story got off to a rather good start almost a year ago. On March 8th 2023, Macron said he was in favour of enshrining the right to abortion in constitutional law, making France the first country in the EU to do so.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
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