France’s Senate votes to make abortion a constitutional ‘freedom’
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Protestors, with cloths covering their mouths, hold candles during a silent pro-life demonstration in Paris, on Feb 28 as the Senate started debates for inclusion of abortion in the Constitution.
PHOTO: AFP
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PARIS - France’s Senate on Feb 28 backed a government move to enshrine the “freedom” to have an abortion in the Constitution, which will now be voted on at a special congress.
President Emmanuel Macron in 2023 pledged to put the right to terminate a pregnancy – which has been legal in France since 1974 – into the Constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure
Despite opposition from some conservative members, the Upper Chamber voted by 267 votes to 50 to back the constitutional change.
The Lower House National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favour of making abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in January, with almost all members of Mr Macron’s centrist minority coalition as well as left-wing opposition parties approving it.
Mr Macron said he would call a special Congress session of the two chambers at Versailles palace on March 4 for a final vote.
Mr Macron welcomed what he called a “decisive step” by the Senate in his announcement on X, the former Twitter.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said France was on the verge of a “historic day” when it becomes “the first country in the world to protect in its Constitution the freedom of women” to decide what happens to their bodies.
The plan faced some opposition from right-wing senators and the government chose the expression “guaranteed freedom” as an apparent compromise between both houses.
The Lower House in 2022 had approved enshrining the “right” to an abortion, while the Senate in 2023 was in favour of adding the “freedom” to resort to the procedure.
However, before the full vote, a Senate committee on Feb 28 rejected motions from the right to amend the text of the proposed revision.
In private several right-wing senators said they felt under pressure to approve the change.
“If I vote against it, my daughters will no longer come for Christmas,” said one woman senator who asked to remain anonymous.
A survey by French polling company Ifop in November 2022 found 86 per cent of French people supported making abortion a constitutional right. AFP
