“It’s an incomplete victory”: feminist associations on Thursday welcomed the Senate’s vote in favor of the inclusion in the Constitution of the “freedom of women” to resort to abortion, but some are worried about this wording that abandons the notion of “right”. After a passionate debate, the senators adopted on Wednesday evening a proposed constitutional law LFI, which had been approved in November, at first reading, by the National Assembly.
The text has however been completely rewritten, via an amendment by Senator LR Philippe Bas. He proposes to complete article 34 of the Constitution with the following formula: “The law determines the conditions under which the freedom of the woman to terminate her pregnancy is exercised”. A wording that no longer refers to the “right” to abortion initially present.
“It’s a strong signal because the Senate doesn’t usually vote for women’s rights” but “it’s not the right scripture, for us it’s important to enshrine abortion in the Constitution as a right “, comments to AFP Sarah Durocher, co-president of Family Planning. For Fabienne El Khoury, spokesperson for the association “Osez le féminisme!” this absence of the term “right” is synonymous with “incomplete victory”. “The notion of right obliges the State to guarantee access to this right”, while “freedom is exercised by itself”, she underlines.
The wording proposed by the Senate “seems potentially dangerous to us”, since it could allow the appearance of a new law defining more restrictive conditions of access to abortion, warns Suzy Rojtman, member of the collective “Abortion in Europe – The women decide. She nevertheless considers the favorable vote of the senators as a “positive signal”, which “allows the parliamentary shuttle to continue”. A pure and simple rejection of the text by the Senate would have buried it: a constitutional bill must be voted on in the same terms by both chambers, then submitted to referendum. “A decisive step”, “historic victory”: the left and the presidential camp hail the vote of the Senate, despite the difference in wording
Philippe Bas, pillar of the senatorial right, justifies the new wording by the desire to “guarantee the balance of the Veil law”. “There is no absolute right: there is freedom, subject to reconciliation between the rights of the pregnant woman and, after a certain period, the protection of the unborn child,” he said. declared. This “balancing” of the “woman’s right to abortion with other constitutionally protected principles is a classic view on the right”, deciphers Floriane Volt, director of public and legal affairs at the Women’s Foundation.
The version of the text voted by the Senate “gives the legislator the power to legislate on abortion, it is not a bad thing in itself because it does not close the door to other improvements in the right to abortion” , such as the abolition of the double conscience clause for doctors, she observes. But the “threats” against the right to abortion rather make associations fear a possible restrictive evolution of the law. “Significant means are put in place to fight the right to abortion on all grounds, in the street, on the internet, in court”, underlines Floriane Volt.
In France, there is still a long way to go before a possible final adoption of the text by Parliament, which should be followed by a referendum. A dreaded ordeal, as it could, fear some associations, mobilize anti-abortion networks. Echoing feminist organizations, the president of the LFI group in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot, who defended the text at the Palais Bourbon, asked Elisabeth Borne on Thursday for a bill to “accelerate” the possible registration of the right to IVG in the Constitution by passing rather by a vote of the Congress. “Propose the bill, we’re just waiting for that.” It is not the drafting of the Senate that we want to see appear in the Constitution “even if the vote of the senators “marks an important step”, she estimated.
