When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, French women were paying close attention. They watched with alarm as those across the Atlantic lost their long-standing right to abortion, seemingly overnight. What if France came next? <\/p>\n
A year and a half later, France is en route to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution, a move that would make it very difficult for future parliaments to chip away at it with restrictive legislation. <\/p>\n
Left-wing lawmakers like Vogel are leading the charge, but the bill has garnered rare cross-party support. It\u2019s backed by the French government itself, with President Emmanuel Macron recently promising that \u201cin 2024, women\u2019s freedom to have an abortion will be irreversible.\u201d <\/p>\n
If the bid is successful, the French constitution will become the first in the world to include the right to abortion, according to Stephanie Hennette-Vauchez, a public law professor and constitutional expert.. <\/p>\n
Although the motion has garnered broad support in France, there has been no shortage of criticism from right-wing lawmakers. Politicians such as Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, have suggested constitutionalization is pointless, as abortion rights in France are not under threat. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrance is not the United States\u2019 51st federal state,\u201d Bardella said on French TV, \u201cthere is no serious widespread political movement in France calling into question the [abortion] law.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, women\u2019s rights advocates insist that enshrining abortion rights in the constitution, while important, will do nothing to facilitate access, a growing issue in rural parts of France. <\/p>\n
For many women in France, the overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer hit too close to home. Popular French TV host Enora Malagr\u00e9, who has spoken openly about her own abortion aged 20, said she was distraught when she heard the news. <\/p>\n
Currently, abortion rights in France are protected by a 1975 law which has been amended on numerous occasions, most recently in 2022, to lengthen the time frame for legal abortions from 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Like all laws, however, it could be revoked by a vote in the French parliament. <\/p>\n
Changing the constitution, on the other hand, is a much more challenging process, requiring either a national referendum or a 3\/5th majority vote in the French Congress \u2014 a special body composed of both chambers of parliament. According to backers of the bill, therefore, constitutionalization would safeguard abortion rights even if a pro-life majority were to be voted into office. <\/p>\n
Rossignol believes that the overturning of Roe v. Wade had a huge impact on public opinion in France, instilling a fear that abortion rights could be placed under threat at any moment. <\/p>\n
The sentiment is echoed by organizations in France on the front line of the fight for reproductive rights, who are fearful of further reversals globally. <\/p>\n
\u201c<\/em>When the far right came into power in certain countries, one of the first things they attacked was\u2026 the right to abortion,\u201d said Sarah Durocher, president of Planning Familial, the French branch of Planned Parenthood International. \u201cI don\u2019t see why France would be an exception,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n Last year, Hungary\u2019s hardline nationalist government made it mandatory for women to listen to the fetal heartbeat before an abortion. In Poland, where abortions are only allowed in the event of rape, incest or a threat to the mother\u2019s health, further restrictions were passed in 2020, when abortions on the grounds of fetal defect were outlawed by the conservative Law and Justice party. Just last week, Argentina elected a far-right president who has pledged to reverse the abortion rights the country acquired in 2020. <\/p>\n In France, recent polling data suggests 86% of people are now favorable to the constitutionalization of abortion rights. <\/p>\n On November 3, the French government presented a draft text to France\u2019s highest administrative court. Once the text is approved, the Congress will convene in the Palace of Versailles to vote on it. If a majority vote is achieved, the amendment will be added to the constitution. <\/p>\n Macron\u2019s government currently holds enough support in parliament to presume a positive vote. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have to do it now,\u201d said Vogel, who submitted the first draft proposal in August 2022. \u201cWe have a majority in parliament. We have a majority in society. So it\u2019s now or never,\u201d she concluded. <\/p>\n Many, including Vogel, fear that the growing popularity of right-wing political parties in France might make a similar amendment impossible to pass as early as the next French elections in 2027. <\/p>\n Despite voting in favor of the bill, right-wing political leader Marine Le Pen, who won 41.5% of the French vote in the 2022 presidential election, has traditionally supported rollbacks on abortion rights. <\/p>\n Just last year, the National Rally lawmaker opposed the extension of the legal abortion time frame from 12 to 14 weeks. In those two weeks \u201cthe medical act completely changes in nature,\u201d Le Pen told French media outlet Brut, \u201cit is much more traumatizing for women.\u201d <\/p>\n Like other right-wing leaders, Le Pen has also said the proposal to constitutionalize abortion rights is \u201ccompletely useless.\u201d <\/p>\n Earlier this year, an anti-abortion campaign group called Les Survivants (The Survivors) brought this sentiment into the public domain, plastering stickers with anti-abortion messages onto Paris\u2019s public rental bikes. <\/p>\n In a statement issued in May, the group said this move was a direct response to the efforts to enshrine abortion rights in the French constitution. <\/p>\n Even among those advocating for the constitutionalization of the amendment, there has been debate over its exact wording. <\/p>\n The current draft submitted by the government accords women the \u201cfreedom\u201d to access abortions rather than the \u201cright\u201d to do so, as had been the case in Vogel\u2019s first draft. <\/p>\n The exact phrasing of the article reads: \u201cThe law determines the conditions under which a woman\u2019s freedom to resort to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy, which is guaranteed to her, is exercised.\u201d <\/p>\n Hennette-Vauchez, the constitutional expert, is wary that this \u201cwatered-down\u201d version of the text might not be as effective at safeguarding abortion rights as the original. While the article guarantees the freedom to have an abortion, it also gives lawmakers leeway to determine the conditions under which this freedom can be exercised, she explained, a power that could be abused in the future. <\/p>\n Additionally, the constitutional amendment per se will do nothing to address France\u2019s growing problem with abortion access, according to Hennette-Vauchez. \u201cYou can put it in the constitution,\u201d she said, but that\u2019s \u201cnot going to open up a service that actually does abortions \u2026 less than 120 km (75 miles) from where you live.\u201d <\/p>\n Recent cuts to public health funding have led to the closure of hundreds of maternity clinics in France, making access to abortions, although legal, difficult for many, said Durocher. Her organization, Planning Familial, has assisted several women needing to travel to different areas of the country to get abortions, she added. <\/p>\n The closure of maternity clinics has also limited the access to surgical abortions, which made up just 22% of abortions in France in 2022. According to Durocher, this predominance of medication abortions is evidence of a lack of choice when it comes to reproductive rights and care. <\/p>\n At the moment, there are only three constitutions in the world that mention abortion, all\u00a0 with the purpose of outlawing it, Hannette-Vauchez explained. \u201cIf we are the first country to gesture towards a freedom to have an abortion in the constitution,\u201d she said, \u201cit opens up a conversation about why we have been living in a world where reproductive issues are silenced by constitutions globally.\u201d <\/p>\n Vogel is determined to continue to speak up. <\/p>\n \u201cAnti-choice movements and reactionary forces are organized and they are strong, but we are stronger and we should never give up on fighting for abortion rights,\u201d said Vogel. \u201cIt\u2019s at the core of having an egalitarian society.\u201d <\/p>\n\n When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, French women were paying close attention. They watched with alarm as those across the Atlantic lost their long-standing right to abortion, seemingly overnight. What if France came next? A year and a half later, France is en route to enshrine the right <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} \u2018Now or never\u2019<\/h2>\n
Symbolic gesture or real change?<\/h2>\n