If granted approval by congress, France is poised to make groundbreaking history as the world's exclusive nation to expressly protect the right to choose abortion within its constitutional framework.
Emmanuel Macron
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A congress comprising both houses of parliament in Versailles is set to convene at 3:30 pm (1430 GMT), with expectations of securing the required three-fifths majority for the constitutional amendment. Overcoming initial resistance in the right-leaning Senate, France is on the brink of becoming the sole nation globally to explicitly safeguard the right to terminate a pregnancy in its foundational law.
President Emmanuel Macron, in response to the US Supreme Court overturning the half-century-old right to abortion in 2022, pledged last year to include the protection of abortion rights in the French constitution. Legalized in France since 1975, abortion gained overwhelming public support as France's lower-house National Assembly in January and the Senate on Wednesday both endorsed making it a “guaranteed freedom” in the constitution.
The final step involves a joint session of both chambers at the Palace of Versailles, where a supermajority is anticipated, given the success in previous votes. Claudine Monteil, head of the Femmes Monde (Women in the World) association and a signatory to the 1971 “Manifesto of the 343,” expressed disbelief at the prospect of abortion rights being enshrined in the constitution back in 1971.
Abortion, initially legalized in France in 1975 through a law championed by women's rights icon Simone Veil, faces a pivotal moment in history. Leah Hoctor, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, highlighted France's potential to introduce "the first explicit broad constitutional provision of its kind, not just in Europe, but also globally.”