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The recent decision of the American Supreme Court to no longer consider the right to abortion as an irrevocable right has international repercussions. In France, the question of including this right in the Constitution is at the heart of the debates.
The questioning of the right to abortion of American women makes French society think.
A larger membership
Asked about the issue, the French are “83% to judge positively the authorization of abortion by French law” according to a study carried out by the IFOP institute for the Jean Jaurès Foundation, carried out by self-administered online questionnaire from June 28 to 29, 2022 with a representative national sample of 1,009 people aged 18 and over.
This important figure has increased dramatically in recent years. There are indeed +16 points compared to 1995, when the same question was surveyed. Similarly, in 1974, only half of French men and women were in favor of authorizing abortion without restriction.
Today, they are 78% to believe that a woman “must have the right to abort freely”. A more liberal position that is widely more shared than fifty years ago.
France, a country that wants to impose the fewest limits on abortion
In comparison with other countries, particularly Western countries but not only, France is one of the countries which believe that it is necessary to set “the fewest limits” on the right to abortion.
In comparison with Germany or the United States, French people aged 16 to 74 are 66% to think that a “woman should have the right to abort freely”, against only 49% of Germans or 35% of Americans.
A right not called into question but to be protected
Finally, if the French do not fear at 56%, a revocation of abortion, it remains feared for 31% of those questioned. Hence the very clear consensus around a potential project to constitutionalize the right to abortion.
Indeed, 81% of respondents are in favor of including access to abortion in the French constitution.
