what change if the right to abortion enters the Constitution?

The path to be traveled to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution is still long and strewn with pitfalls. Concretely, such a change would also be only slightly perceptible in the daily life of the French.

[Mis à jour le 24 novembre 2022 à 21h03] A first step towards the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution was taken this Thursday, November 24. The draft law of La France insoumise was adopted by the National Assembly, on the occasion of its parliamentary niche (a day when a minority group in the Assembly is master of the agenda). The proposed constitutional law “aiming to guarantee the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy” was approved by 337 deputies. 32 votes against and 18 abstentions were also recorded. However, nothing is won. The text must still be validated in the same terms by the Senate, which is mainly on the right and therefore rather opposed to this idea. If the upper house gives the green light, a referendum would still have to be organised. Referendum which would not be without risk for President Macron, who would be responsible for summoning him or… forgetting him. If, however, a referendum were to be held, the French would then have to vote in majority for, in which case, the registration of theAbortion in the Constitution could not be validated.

This constitutional bill comes five months after the US Supreme Court decided to bury the iconic Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right of American women to have an abortion. A judgment which had nevertheless marked history in 1973. A judgment which for almost half a century had guaranteed the right of American women to have an abortion. But a judgment which had in fact never been accepted by the religious right, recalls BBC News. When in June 2022, the United States Supreme Court did an about-face, it opened the door to numerous restrictions, with each state then becoming free to ban abortions or not. A decision which had aroused strong reactions across the Atlantic, but also in France. If the right to abortion was not more in danger there than that, several political groups had all the same from the outset expressed their desire to include the right to abortion in the Constitution.

What changes in the event of modification of the Constitution?

Including the right to abortion in the Constitution would transform recourse to abortion into a constitutional guarantee and would offer the highest degree of protection to this right granted to women since the Veil law of November 29, 1974. In fact, the changes would be imperceptible, the right to have recourse to abortion already being guaranteed, reinforced and protected by a succession of laws. The main effect that the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution would have would be the guarantee that no other law or legislative provision would undermine, restrict or prohibit recourse to abortion in France. “The legislator could no longer take retrogressive measures that would undermine [à ce] law”, confirmed the professor of public law at the Sorbonne law school, Diane Roman, in the columns of Release.

During a “happening” on the steps of the Bourbon Palace on Tuesday, the LFI deputies displayed themselves brandishing metal hangers, a symbol of clandestine abortions. More than their bill, they asked the government for a bill, while the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, had, last June, supported the proposal of the deputies aiming to include abortion in the Constitution. “We want to say again during this event which comes in two days with our parliamentary niche that we do not want a constitutional law proposal, but a constitutional bill”, entrusted to the Huffington Post the president of the LFI group in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot.

And for good reason, a constitutional bill, which would emanate not from deputies unlike a proposal, but from the government, would make it possible to speed things up since when it comes to modifying the Constitution, parliamentarians must submit to a referendum while the government only needs “two thirds of parliamentarians [réunis en] congress”, specified the deputy of Val-de-Marne.

Difficult to speak of a long calm river. When it comes to modifying the Constitution, a constitutional bill must first be approved in the same terms in the National Assembly, but also in the Senate. Outside the upper house of parliament is currently resolutely on the right, or rather against it. Proof of this is, on October 19, the Senate has already challenged the text carried by the environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel which aimed to… constitutionalize abortion.

Beyond this stage, which therefore promises to be already compromised, as MP Mathilde Panot reminded the Huffington Post, if one of the texts passed the first stage, it would still have to be approved by referendum. But a referendum is often considered risky for a President of the Republic. But in this case, it would be up to the Head of State to summon him. And as pointed out ReleaseEmmanuel Macron could then quite throw it into oblivion.

If LFI and the majority seem, for once, on the same wavelength, Les Républicains and the National Rally are much more cautious on this subject. For Marine Le Pen, who spoke on Tuesday November 22 on the subject in a press release, “at a time when the French are affected by multiple crises […]it seems quite offbeat to open a debate which, if it exists in the United States, does not exist in France, no political force considering questioning access to abortion. For his part, the boss of the LRs in the Assembly, Olivier Marleix, affirmed at the beginning of November that The Republicans considered “that this debate, we could have spared it. In these two camps, the instruction had been to precisely not to impose voting instructions, recalls Release.

In fact, it is not one but two proposals for constitutional laws which aim to include the protection of the right to abortion in the Constitution which are put on the table in the Assembly: that of the Insoumis, but also that of Renaissance (ex-LREM). Thursday’s text therefore comes from the Insoumis and wishes in particular to add a new article to Title VIII, saying that “no one may infringe the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy and to contraception. The law guarantees to anyone who does demand free and effective access to these rights”, reports Release. The second, carried by the leader of the deputies of the majority, Aurore Bergé, and which will be discussed in the Assembly on Monday, November 28, aims to inscribe with a hot iron that “no woman can be deprived of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”, disregarding contraception.