The National Assembly again approved on Tuesday the extension of the legal deadline for performing an abortion to 14 weeks of pregnancy instead of 12, but refused to remove the specific conscience clause for doctors.
The bill "aimed at strengthening the right to abortion", examined at second reading, was adopted at the end of the evening by 79 votes against 36 and 8 abstentions, after often heated debates.
The text was adopted in October 2020 in the Assembly before being rejected in the Senate, and the rest of its legislative journey and therefore its final adoption under the current legislature remain uncertain.
The government, for its part, did not comment, only issuing a "wisdom opinion" on all the provisions of the text, without a firm commitment to have it examined again in the Senate.
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran, a doctor by training, however, said he was personally in favor of extending the legal deadline.
"The right of women to dispose of their bodies"
The opponents of the measure have multiplied the interventions to underline, like Fabien Di Filippo (LR), that with the growth of the fetus between 12 and 14 weeks "the act of abortion changes in nature", with " gynecological consequences which can be serious ”.
Several right-wing MPs have pleaded for better access for women to abortion within the current deadline, rather than its extension.
Co-rapporteur Albane Gaillot (non-registered, ex-LREM) replied that this measure was "not a feminist activist's whim" but was inspired by "meetings in the field".
“The subject is not technical, the subject is the right of women to dispose of their bodies,” she pleaded.
Elimination of the cooling-off period
The deputies also abolished the 48-hour delay between the psycho-social interview and the collection of consent to an abortion, a provision which has provoked new clashes.
“There is no infringement of freedom of choice.
We do not eliminate the possibility of reflection for those who wish it, ”pleaded the socialist co-rapporteur Marie-Noëlle Battistel.
Conversely, Philippe Gosselin (LR) supported this "period of serenity, this time to step back" and estimated that by removing it "we are moving away from the spirit and the letter" of the Veil law establishing the right to abortion.
Another provision adopted allows the extension of the competence of midwives, already authorized to perform medical abortions, to surgical abortions.
Debate on the conscience clause
Opponents of the text nevertheless managed to score a point by passing LR amendments emptying article 2 of the proposed law of its substance, which ended in removing the conscience clause for doctors specific to abortion while maintaining their general conscience clause for any medical act to which they are opposed. This conscience clause specific to abortion “only has the effect of stigmatizing” women wishing to have an abortion, said Annie Chapelier (Agir group, ally of the majority).
But on the right Patrick Hetzel (LR) developed that the two clauses were not identical: regulatory therefore submitted to the government for the "general" clause, legislative therefore engraved in the law for the "specific" clause.
“Crossing it out with a stroke of the pen is very worrying for freedoms,” he said.
This deletion "is massively contested by the profession" and would help to make abortion a "harmless act", said Emmanuelle Ménard (not registered, close to the RN).
Olivier Véran himself was reserved on this measure: "it is not excluded that there is a bad interpretation of this deletion (of the specific clause) which could sow trouble in the medical community", he said.
Politics
IVG: The text on the extension of the legal deadline returns to the National Assembly
Health
Paris: "It's not just the perineum that cracks" ... The midwives demonstrate again
Abortion
National Assembly
Ivg
Womens rights
Society
0 comment
0 share
Share on Messenger
Share on Facebook
Share on twitter
Share on Flipboard
Share on Pinterest
Share on Linkedin
Send by Mail
To safeguard
A fault ?
To print