“France has become the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution. » Whether in the United States, Spain, Germany or even Argentina, many media outlets around the world underlined with the same words the “historic” nature of the vote of the parliamentarians meeting in Congress in Versailles, Monday March 5, who amended the Basic Law to protect the freedom to have recourse to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion).
“A solemn and moving ceremony in the august setting of the hemicycle of the south wing of the Palace of Versailles, symbol of the absolute power of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and of French greatness,” described the Spanish daily in particular. El Pais, highlighting the “strong emotional charge that reached the public and the press stands.” Present on the Place du Trocadéro, in Paris, where the debates were broadcast on a large screen, the Washington Post returned to the explosion of joy which followed the adoption of the modification of the Constitution: “The crowd burst with joy. The Eiffel Tower was lit up with sparkling lights. Mothers and daughters embraced. The square immediately transformed into a huge street party, with revelers singing the lyrics to a Beyoncé song, “Who run the world, girls”.
For El Pais, while France had “in the recent past adopted societal rights later than other countries”, taking the example of same-sex marriage legalized in 2013 a decade after Spain, “today, this country which displays its universal values, can pride itself on having been a pioneer”. “It is a strong signal that France is sending to the world,” said the German daily Die Welt, which welcomes “a determination that Germany can follow as an example.”
Especially since across the Rhine, abortion is governed by article 218 of the Penal Code which specifies that abortion is a crime in itself but can be decriminalized under several conditions: if it is performed before the twelfth week of pregnancy, if the pregnant woman has consulted a counseling center, or if the pregnancy is the consequence of rape or if it endangers the woman’s life. “Abortion “without punishment” transforms every German woman who ends an unwanted pregnancy into a criminal, to whom one eye is closed while she is morally condemned with the other,” laments Die Welt, calling the commission put in place by the ruling coalition to clarify the law on abortion “to follow the French determination”.
“Passionate speeches”
Many media reported the content of the speeches of the deputies and senators who spoke from the podium of the Congress hall. For the New York Times, the French parliamentarians who expressed their group’s position Monday afternoon “delivered impassioned speeches on women’s rights around the world to pay tribute to the courageous French women who fought for the right to ‘abortion when it was illegal’.
“Throughout this session, the parliamentarians paid tribute to Simone Veil [at the origin of the law authorizing abortion in 1975], as well as to Gisèle Halimi, the former lawyer whose defense of a student 16-year-old who had undergone an illegal abortion after being raped led to her acquittal in 1972,” continues the American daily, recalling the evolution of abortion rights in French law. “The amendment to the Constitution does not change the content of the legislation as it exists today,” specifies the Washington Post, which explains that it will nevertheless be “more difficult for a new government to ban abortion in less than fifteen weeks or even to decide that abortion is no longer covered by Social Security.”
In Argentina, Clarin particularly noticed the “reference to [their] country” in the all-green outfit worn by the president of the “rebellious” group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot. It was in fact a tribute to the Argentine pro-abortion activists who gathered around this color during demonstrations in 2020 which resulted in the legalization of abortion in the South American country.
A response to the US Supreme Court
All the media which covered this information also noted that this inclusion of abortion in the French Basic Law “was a response” to the decision taken by the Supreme Court in June 2022 to repeal the Roe vs Wade ruling. which since 1973 had granted American women the right to have an abortion throughout the country. Six legislative proposals were subsequently tabled in France to protect abortion, leading eighteen months later to the convening of Congress in order to modify the Constitution.
“In the United States as in France, polls show that a majority of people largely support the right to abortion. But abortion divides more in the United States than in France,” continues the Washington Post. Very sharply dividing Democrats and Republicans, the issue of abortion is also seen as one of the major themes of the upcoming presidential election in the United States which could pit outgoing President Joe Biden against his predecessor, Donald Trump.
The Wall Street Journal also believes that Monday’s vote “marks a rare moment of unity within the French Parliament which is divided”, since Emmanuel Macron “lost his absolute majority in the National Assembly while the extreme left and far right were gaining ground.” For the American economic daily, this adoption by Parliament comes after the French executive has used in recent months “its constitutional powers to circumvent the legislator”, thus recalling the use twenty-three times of article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitution which allowed the budgetary texts and pension reform to be adopted without a vote in March 2023.
In Switzerland, Le Temps also saw in this constitutionalization of abortion a vote “very practical for the presidential camp, allowing it to “point out the threats of an arrival in power of the National Rally, particularly embarrassed in its surroundings on this subject”. The far-right deputies were indeed very divided on the subject: 46 RN elected officials out of 88 voted for, 11 against and 20 against. Eleven of them did not take part in the vote.
