France holding historic vote on abortion rights – National

Lawmakers in France met on Monday for a final vote to include the right to abortion in the constitution, a world-first welcomed by women’s rights groups and criticized by anti-abortion groups.

Abortion rights are more widely accepted in France than in the United States and many other countries, where polls show around 80 percent of French people support the fact that abortion is legal.

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Only clinic providing surgical abortions outside of NB hospital closures

The US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade recognizing women’s constitutional right to abortion prompted activists to push France to become the first country to explicitly protect the right in its constitution.

“This right (to abortion) has retreated in the United States. And so no one has allowed us to think that France is exempt from this risk,” said Laura Slimani, from the Fondation des Femmes rights group.

The move, which has broad political support, is widely expected to get the three-fifths majority it needs in a special vote by both houses of parliament on Monday afternoon.

“There are many emotions, as a feminist activist, as well as as a woman. And there is a lot of solemnity in a certain way, because we will live in a historic moment, I hope,” said Slimani.

Women have had legal abortion rights in France since a 1974 law, which was heavily criticized at the time.

Monday’s vote is expected to write in Article 34 of the French constitution that “the law establishes the conditions under which a woman has the guaranteed freedom to seek assistance in an abortion.”

“We fought it, so it’s a defeat,” said Pascale Moriniere, president of the Association of Catholic Families.

“It’s a defeat for women,” he said, “and, of course, for all the children who don’t see the sun.”

Moriniere said there was no need to add the right to abortion to the constitution.

“We imported a debate that was not French, because the United States was the first to remove that in the Roe v. repeal law. Wade. … There was a panic effect from the feminist movement, who wanted to carve it into the marble of the constitution,” she said.