France hopes other EU countries follow its lead on abortion

France hopes its current debate on having the right to abortion enshrined in the Constitution would inspire its EU counterparts, French Gender Equality and Diversity Minister Aurore Bergé said at the informal meeting of gender equality ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.

France’s National Assembly approved a bill at the end of January that would enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion in the country’s constitution, set in motion after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022. The ball is now in the court of senators, who are due to vote on Wednesday.

“We are at an important moment in France,” Bergé told her EU counterparts on the sidelines of the meeting organised by the Belgian EU presidency, adding that she hoped “this will inspire all EU member states to guarantee this fundamental freedom, this fundamental right of women”.

In Europe, the conditions for access to abortion vary significantly from country to country. In Malta and Poland, abortion is prohibited except in cases of danger to the mother or the foetus.

The cut-off point for abortion is 24 weeks in the Netherlands, 18 weeks in Sweden, 14 weeks in France and Luxembourg, and 12 weeks in Ireland and Denmark.

In France, the MPS in the National Assembly enthusiastically welcomed the bill ‘guaranteeing freedom’ for women’s access to abortion, with 493 votes in favour, 30 against and 23 abstentions.

“The National Assembly and the government have not missed their rendezvous with women’s history,” said French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti after the vote on 30 January.

However, a positive vote in the Senate, which has a right-wing majority, is less certain, especially as its president, Gérard Larcher (Les Républicains, EPP), said in January that he was against the measure.

“I don’t think that abortion is under threat in France,” he said, adding that “the Constitution is not a catalogue of social and societal rights”, even though, according to the Fondation des femmes, over 80% of French people are in favour of abortion being enshrined in the Constitution.

“Larcher is proof that we need to constitutionalise: we can have people in key positions in the Republic who deny women their freedom, in defiance of everyone,” reacted immediately Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Fondation des femmes on X.

(Clara Bauer-Babef | Euractiv.fr)