Yaël Braun-Pivet responded to the President of the Senate after his comments on the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution.
Including voluntary termination of pregnancy in the Constitution is a promise from Emmanuel Macron. Although this project faces numerous obstacles and in particular opposition from certain political leaders, the entry of abortion into the text could materialize soon. The bill, voted on November 24, 2022 in the National Assembly, has evolved since that date and certain terms have been modified. The new text, presented to the Assembly this Wednesday, January 24, received the favorable opinion of the majority of deputies in these terms: “The law determines the conditions in which the freedom guaranteed to women to have recourse to voluntary termination of pregnancy. However, the text will be officially voted on by the Assembly on Tuesday January 30 and will then be transmitted to the Senate.
Guest of France Info this Tuesday, January 23, the President of the Senate showed himself reluctant to include abortion in the Constitution, arguing that “abortion is not threatened in our country”. Before adding that “the Constitution is not a catalog of social and societal rights”. Her words sparked a lot of reactions from the feminist community and this Thursday, the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, responded to these remarks during her greetings to the press at the Hôtel de Lassay.
According to Ms Braun-Pivet it is an “error” to “say that the Constitution should not be the receptacle of social rights and rights and freedoms”. The President of the Assembly took the opportunity to recall the roles of the Constitution which are to organize “the distribution between powers” and to “consecrate fundamental rights and freedoms (…)” before specifying that “the right to resort to abortion is a fundamental freedom. She concluded her plea by declaring that “yes, the Constitution is the right place, I even want to say the only place where this right must be enshrined today”.
Ms. Braun-Pivet did not stop there and turned her speech towards the situation of abortion abroad and declared that “we see clearly, in a certain number of countries, and not countries which we are so different that it is now threatened. The president also added that it is important that France “carries this word” and that “we must bring this message to the whole world”.