For MPs, the start of the school year promises to be busy. At the end of three weeks away from the Palais Bourbon, they will have to look into the draft constitutional law providing for the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution, which arrives, this Tuesday, January 16, in the law committee.
After the hearing of Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti, the text will be examined by the commission on Wednesday January 17.
The text plans to insert in article 34 of the Constitution that “the law determines the conditions in which the freedom guaranteed to women to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy is exercised”.
A promise from Emmanuel Macron, this constitutional bill was presented to the Council of Ministers in December 2023. Through this text, “France will become one of the first countries in the world and the first in Europe to recognize freedom in its Constitution to resort to abortion, which is solely the discretion of women”, we can read on the government website.
Between “freedom” and “right”
After months of delay, the wording adopted, “guaranteed freedom”, is in the eyes of the government, a balance between the notion of “right to abortion” and that of “freedom”. Feminist associations see it as a compromise to allow abortion to be included in the Constitution.
A first draft, proposed by La France insoumise and aiming to introduce into the Constitution “the effectiveness and equal access to the right to abortion”, received a very large majority in the Assembly in November 2022.
But the text was adopted in February 2023 by a narrow majority in the Senate, where the formula “the woman’s freedom to end her pregnancy” replaced the notion of “right”.
In its opinion on this text published on December 12, the Council of State considered that “the consecration of a right to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy would not have a different scope from the proclamation of a freedom” .
Adoption by parliamentarians scheduled for March 5
A choice which, even today, sparks debate. “Should it be a right or a freedom? In truth, I believe that what is necessary is that we guarantee that it can be adopted in the Assembly, in the Senate”, judged the Minister responsible for Equality between Women and Men, Aurore Bergé, on LCI, January 14.
If the bill should pass without difficulty the Assembly stage, where it will be examined in session on January 24, it will still have to convince the Senate, dominated by the Republicans, where it is expected on February 26.
A tight schedule with a view to adoption by parliamentarians in Congress, which the government wants to convene on March 5, a few days before International Women’s Rights Day on March 8.