The entry into the Constitution of the “freedom” or the “right” to voluntary termination of pregnancy is still awaited in France. After the revocation, on June 24, 2022, of the Roe vs Wade judgment, in the United States, which guaranteed at the federal level since 1973 the right to terminate a pregnancy, the left and the Macronist group Renaissance hastened to react, showing the wish to prevent such a regression in our country. But a year later, the parliamentary shuttle is stopped, and the Elysée, which is committed to the subject, still does not have a timetable, while ensuring that the work is in progress.
On November 24, 2022, the National Assembly had adopted by a large majority (337 votes for, 32 against and 18 abstentions) a bill on which the left and the majority had agreed. “The law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”, specified the compromise text. The proposal was then passed on February 1 in the Senate by a vote of 166 to 152, after the word “right” was replaced with “freedom”.
More than a month later, on March 8, on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, Emmanuel Macron in turn committed himself to the subject, announcing that he would propose “in the coming months” a bill of constitutional revision to include “in our fundamental text” this “freedom”.
“We’re not going to give up”
Since… nothing. “We are not going to give up”, assures the environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel, who had carried a text on the constitutionalization of abortion in the fall of 2022. “If we have to return to the parliamentary path, we will do it”, adds the chosen one, who says she doesn’t understand how, in three months, “not a single sentence” could not have been written.
On the side of the Presidency of the Republic, discussions have been initiated with the presidents of the two Chambers, Yaël Braun-Pivet in the National Assembly and Gérard Larcher in the Senate, to find an agreement. “The consultations have been made, we are awaiting the conclusions,” it is said at the Elysée. Said consultations relate to a set of revisions whose measures, except for abortion, have not been specified. It could be a question of institutional reform. Senator Mélanie Vogel fears that the right to abortion will be “held hostage” between measures that are not unanimous: “It would be absolute cynicism”, she judges.
In the meantime, the return of the text to the National Assembly, to continue the parliamentary shuttle, is under discussion, without a defined timetable. “We don’t know what will happen in 2027 [year of the next presidential election], so whatever it is, it is absolutely necessary that [the right to abortion] be constitutionalized before,” defends the senator. .