The constitutionalization of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVG) continues its way. Adopted almost unanimously in the Assembly on November 24, the bill of the rebellious deputies lands this Wednesday, February 1 in the Senate, with a majority on the right and center. The senators must decide on a text with a single article, the result of a compromise between the different political groups of the Palais Bourbon. “The law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”, he writes in article 66 of the Constitution. To give rise to a referendum, the bill must be adopted in the same terms by the senators.
No chance. The proposal was rejected in committee on January 25. The Senate had already rejected in October an environmental text aimed at constitutionalizing abortion. The arguments are repeated at will by the senatorial right. Recognized by the wise as a constitutional freedom in 2001, abortion benefits from “sufficient legal protection” and is not questioned as in the United States. Finally, the senators judge that this right has hardly any place in the fundamental law, a text to be handled with a trembling hand. “The Constitution is not there to integrate provisions of symbolic value or to be a catalog of rights, judges the rapporteur of the text, Agnès Canayer (LR). It would be endless.”
The Bas Amendment, Chief’s Surprise
A negative vote would terminate the procedure. But a twist casts a slight doubt on this quickly written scenario. Senator LR Philippe Bas tabled an amendment last Friday to rewrite the rebellious bill, to everyone’s surprise. In this proposal, the senator from La Manche replaces the notion of “right” with that of “freedom”, as the Constitutional Council did in 2001. “The law determines the conditions under which the freedom of women to put an end to her pregnancy”, he wishes to include in article 34 of the Constitution.
Philippe Bas boasts a finer formulation legally. It would guarantee freedom of access to abortion and would leave it to the legislator to set its limits, thus allowing a balance between “the freedom of the pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy with the rights of the unborn child “. “We have introduced the ban on the death penalty in the Constitution, abortion has its place there”, defends the senator LR of Bouches-du-Rhône Stéphane Le Rudulier, anxious to deny the image of a Senate conservative.
“Abortion, in the Constitution, is not a household thing”
This initiative is not to everyone’s taste. Taken by surprise, several elected LR deplore a break with the position of the senatorial right, which has always been hostile to this measure. “This back flip is complicated to manage,” laments an LR senator. A centrist colleague abounds: “The abortion, in the Constitution, it is not a thing of the house.” The entourage of Philippe Bas defends itself from any surprise maneuver. He did not exclude this fall a modification of the fundamental law during the examination of the ecological text. “Come back with a good text, and we’ll talk about it,” he said in the hemicycle on October 19. And then, the former secretary general of the Elysée Palace was one of Simone Veil’s close collaborators. “He has admiration for her, it’s a point that comes into account,” we assure.
The future of this amendment is uncertain. In an LR group meeting, the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher and the boss of the LR group Bruno Retailleau reaffirmed their opposition on Tuesday to the integration of abortion in the Constitution. The two elected officials believe that it should not be the receptacle of all societal subjects. “This text is sacred,” said Gérard Larcher in substance.
But in the senatorial majority, the freedom to vote remains in place on societal issues. The left, despite its reservations about the Bas amendment, is ready to vote for the text. The ballot could be tight, believe several elected officials. “It will be key-key. I do not exclude that it will pass”, slips a group president. “The games are open, confirms an elected LR. With social pressure and that of public opinion, colleagues are asking questions.” The verdict is expected on Wednesday evening.