French National Assembly Approves Constitutional Guarantee for Abortion

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Facts

  • France's National Assembly approved a government bill to enshrine a 'guaranteed freedom' for women to access 'voluntary termination of pregnancy' in the country's constitution after an hours-long debate on Wednesday night, with a solemn vote scheduled for Jan. 30 still due before the issue advances to the Senate.1
  • The constitutional amendment to Article 34 received broad support from the ruling coalition, left-wing lawmakers, and the centrist LIOT coalition, passing with 99 votes to 13, as four right-wing legislators — two from Les Républicans (LR) and two from the National Rally — also voted in favor of the bill.2
  • The bill comes as multiple parties in France, from the left to the center, have pushed for abortion to become a constitutional right after the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022.3
  • The National Assembly had already passed a bill that would enshrine the 'right' to abortion in the constitution at the end of 2022, but the text returned to the lower house a few months later as the Senate approved a different version that guarantees a 'freedom' instead of a 'right' to have an abortion.2
  • Meanwhile, the president of the Senate and the second-highest-ranking official in the country, Gérard Larcher (LR), has expressed his opposition to including abortion rights in the constitution despite not opposing abortion itself. Though he traditionally doesn't vote, this move indicates that senators may block the bill.4
  • As per recent polling, over 80% of the population is in favor of the right to access abortion, which was decriminalized in France in 1975. In July 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution to declare the right to abortion a fundamental right.5

Sources: 1Le Monde.fr, 2RFI, 3Guardian, 4Europeanconservative and 5Forbes.

Narratives

  • Left narrative, as provided by www.euractiv.com. If there was still any doubt that abortion must be enshrined in the French Constitution, the so-called personal opinion of Larcher stressed the need to constitutionalize the issue. Though the nation overwhelmingly supports the right to have access to abortion, this is far from being a guarantee, as some right-wing high-ranking officials in France insist on denying women their freedom.
  • Right narrative, as provided by Eclj. On top of the outrageous nature of turning an act that used to be a crime into a constitutional right, this move would also have catastrophic legal consequences when in conflict with other rights. The left isn't attempting to interpret the constitution as including a right to abortion but is trying to reform it — a strong-arm tactic used only by one country: Yugoslavia under the socialist and criminal regime of Tito. Is this the example that France wants to follow?

Predictions