France has enshrined a “guaranteed” right to abortion in its constitution, the first country in the world to codify abortion in its foundational documents in this way.
Parliamentarians gathered for a special session at the Palace of Versailles on Monday and voted 780 in favour to 72 against to amend the national constitution to include a “guaranteed” right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.
In France, abortion is already legal up to 14 weeks of gestation, which is more restrictive than the 16-week limit proposed in the United States by former President Donald Trump.
There was “thunderous” applause in the chamber after the vote and, as reported by The Guardian, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated specially to mark the passing of the resolution. The paper notes the constitutional amendment will be made official at a ceremony on Friday, on International Women’s Day, a holiday originally devised by radical socialists in the early 1900s.
Protesters hold a banner reading “I was an embryo too” during a demonstration against abortion and euthanasia, called by the association “La Marche pour la vie” in Versailles, southwest of Paris, on March 4, 2024. A congress of both houses of parliament is held in Versailles to anchor the right to abortion in the country’s constitution. If congress approves the move, France will become the only country in the world to clearly protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its basic law. (Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP) (Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP via Getty Images)
French newspaper Le Figaro notes making abortion a permanent feature of the French legal system by enshrining it in the constitution had been a political project of the left for many years, and that recently the right wing in the country had “given up” trying to oppose it.
The paper cites one right-centrist senator, Hervé Marseille, who had also campaigned unsuccessfully against the establishment of same-sex marriage in the last decade, who acknowledged the arguments of the pro-life camp simply weren’t getting a hearing and the majority of lawmakers agreed with the change, so there was nothing left to fight for.
As it is, no major political party in France opposed the change, leading to the overwhelming vote to enshrine the right. Not that there was any threat to access to abortion in France, where it has been legal for nearly half a century. As previously reported, the move was conceived in France as a push-back against rulings in the United States last year, which French lawmakers perceived as endangering abortion rights in their own country.