Opponents of abortion called to demonstrate during the “march for life”

Europe 1 with AFP 7:25 a.m., January 21, 2024

Opponents of abortion and its inclusion in the Constitution are called to demonstrate on Sunday as part of the "march for life" which should, according to its organizers, bring together more than 10,000 people this year.

The procession of this demonstration, organized by activists belonging to the conservative Catholic ranks, will leave at 2:30 p.m. from Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris to reach Place Denfert-Rochereau.

“This project seems completely indecent, useless and dangerous to us”

This national event is organized each year around the anniversary of the Veil law relating to the voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) and promulgated on January 17, 1975. This year, the organizers highlighted the opposition to the registration of abortion in the Constitution, promised by Emmanuel Macron and which must be debated in the National Assembly on January 24.

“This project seems to us to be completely indecent, useless and dangerous,” declared to AFP the president of the March for Life, Nicolas Tardy-Joubert, who called for “prevention policies” to be put in place instead.

“Currently the freedom to abort is absolutely not threatened, what is threatened is the right to be born,” he adds.

According to the latest official figures, 234,300 abortions were recorded in France in 2022.

The subject of euthanasia also present during the demonstration

In addition to rejecting the constitutionalization of abortion, the organizers of the march are calling for a compulsory ultrasound from the sixth week of pregnancy, making it possible to "hear the fetal heart beat", or even a three-day reflection period before any IVG.

They also call for “encouraging childbirth under X” and defending “the absolute right to conscientious objection of health personnel and protecting the specific conscience clause.”

Another subject also on the agenda of the demonstration, the rejection of any "legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia" a few weeks before the presentation of a bill on the end of life, announced for February in Council of Ministers.

“We absolutely must develop palliative care and we must provide the budgetary means for this,” believes Nicolas Tardy-Joubert, pleading for “100% palliative care and 0% euthanasia”.