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While the constitutional right to abortion has just been abolished by the Supreme Court in the United States, in France, many voices are calling for the right to abortion to be included in the Constitution.
This Sunday, nearly 400 lawyers signed a column published in the Sunday newspaper (JDD), calling for the right to abortion to be included in the French Constitution to protect women’s rights.
Nine states have already banned abortion
“It only took six votes to change the lives of millions of women (…)”. This is how the committed forum of Karen Noblinski, Julie Couturier, Vincent Nioré, Rachel-Flore Pardo and 400 other lawyers begins.
They describe, not without bitterness, the decision taken Friday by the Supreme Court of the United States. It repeals Roe v. Wade”which for nearly half a century has enshrined the right to abortion”.
This decision authorizes each American state to completely prohibit voluntary terminations of pregnancy. Nine have already taken the plunge and many more will follow, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The law does not provide for an exception in the event of rape or incest.
This is why these lawyers have demanded “without further delay the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French Constitution”. Because “the decision of the American Supreme Court reminds us that the rights of women acquired after a long struggle are in danger (…). It also raises the question of the guarantee of this right in France where nearly 230,000 women have recourse to abortion each year..
In Missouri, the first state to completely ban abortion, performing an abortion after the eighth week has since yesterday been punished by fifteen years in prison.
“The ban on abortion will never limit the voluntary termination of pregnancy”
Revolted, the signatories of the tribune specify that the cancellation of the judgment Roe v. Wade”will never limit voluntary termination of pregnancy“.
On the contrary, and history shows, “the prohibition and criminalization of this right will lead to a dazzling number of clandestine abortions carried out in precarious, dangerous sanitary conditions unworthy of a democratic country”they warn.
The World Health Organization estimates that clandestine abortions represent 49% of abortions worldwide. The countries most affected by clandestine abortions were, until now, developing countries such as India or Africa.
These non-medical and fundamentally dangerous abortions (piercing the egg with piercing objects, taking medication or chemicals, etc.) can lead to many complications, often fatal, for the baby and the mother. Incomplete abortions, infections, uterine bleeding, sepsis and other uterine injuries, to name but a few.
Around the world, approximately 47,000 women who have clandestine abortions die each year from infections.