A new legislative step has been reached. The National Assembly adopted, Tuesday, January 30, by a large majority the inclusion in the Constitution of “guaranteed freedom” for women to have recourse to abortion, thus throwing the ball to the Senate, where the wording chosen generates much less consensus.
“The law determines the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to a woman to have recourse to” an abortion is exercised. The wording proposed by the government was validated to loud applause from the deputies, against a backdrop of concern over the challenges to this right in the United States and Europe.
“This victory sounds like revenge against the shame, clandestinity, silence, suffering, death that hundreds of thousands of women have had to face,” said Mathilde Panot (LFI), who had voted for at the end of 2022 a first text consecrating a “right” to abortion.
“This evening the Assembly and the government did not miss their meeting with the History of Women (…) with History itself,” greeted the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti while Prime Minister Gabriel Attal hailed on X a “very great victory in the National Assembly for women’s rights”.
Very big victory in the National Assembly for women’s rights.
I welcome the adoption, almost unanimously, of the bill aimed at including the right to abortion in our Constitution.— Gabriel Attal (@GabrielAttal) January 30, 2024
The reform supported by 493 deputies against 30
The constitutional reform was supported by 493 deputies against 30. All left-wing elected officials and almost all of the majority and the independent Liot group voted for. On the right, the LR group was divided between 40 for, 15 against and four abstentions. Just like the RN (46 for, 12 against and 14 abstentions).
On the LR side, several deputies are concerned about an imbalance in relation to the Veil law, between “the possibility for women to have recourse to abortion and respect for human beings from the beginning of their life”, according to MP Emilie Bonnivard (LR).
Some are also concerned about extensions of the legal duration for an abortion or challenges to the conscience clause of caregivers refusing to practice it, without the Constitutional Council being able to oppose it. Argument also put forward by the pro-life movement Alliance Vita which fears a future “enforceable right”.
“This bill does not create an enforceable right” to abortion, insisted several times Guillaume Gouffier Valente (Renaissance), rapporteur to the Assembly. “It’s a historic battle won by feminists,” reacted Sarah Durocher, president of Family Planning contacted by AFP, who sees the broad adoption in the Assembly as an “encouraging” sign for the Senate.
“Face arguments”
The government chose the wording “guaranteed freedom” to find a way between the text voted in the Assembly evoking a “right”, and another that the Senate, dominated by the right and the center, adopted by a few votes close, but which only retained the term “freedom”.
Balance is essential: the path chosen to modify the Constitution implies that both chambers vote on the same text, down to the comma, before it is submitted to a vote in Congress bringing together parliamentarians, and requiring 3/5th of the votes. . Otherwise, the shuttle will resume.
After the vote, the Minister of Justice chose his words carefully, vowing “determination and humility” to the Senate. Mélanie Vogel, an environmentalist senator at the forefront of the issue, launched an appeal to the upper house: “do not give in to facade arguments or political considerations. History will not hold them back.”
“We cannot consider that the Assembly text is take it or leave it,” immediately warns Senator LR Philippe Bas, author of the wording adopted in the Senate, and who sees in the notion of “guaranteed freedom” a potential risk of sliding towards “enforceable law”.
Tenors from the right and the center are against constitutionalization, like the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher (LR), for whom “abortion is not threatened”.
Another stinger, the proposal in December from Minister Aurore Bergé (then in charge of Solidarity) to convene the Congress on March 5, perceived as pressure on Parliament. Eric Dupond-Moretti promised to take “the time it takes”. Supporters in the Senate of inclusion in the Constitution also harbor a hope: that the votes lost by the right in the last senatorial elections will help tip the scales. The text must be examined by the upper house on February 28.