This provision was adopted by 63 votes against 30 and 6 abstentions within the framework of the examination in second reading, started Monday, of a bill "aimed at strengthening the right to abortion".

The text was adopted in October 2020 in the Assembly before being rejected in the Senate, and a final adoption under the current legislature remains uncertain.

The government, for its part, did not comment, only issuing a "wisdom opinion" on all the provisions of the text.

The Minister of Health Olivier Véran, a doctor by training, however, said he was personally in favor of this extension of the legal deadline.

The opponents of the measure have multiplied the interventions Tuesday to underline, like Fabien Di Filippo (LR), that with the growth of the fetus between 12 and 14 weeks "the act of abortion changes 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 fad of a feminist activist" but was inspired by "meetings on the ground".

French MP (then registered with LREM) Albane Gaillot at the National Assembly in Paris, February 6, 2019 Christophe ARCHAMBAULT AFP / Archives

"The subject is not technical, the subject is the right of women to dispose of their bodies," she pleaded.

Despite a comfortable final vote on this provision, the meeting almost changed course with the rejection of an LR amendment that would have removed it from the text.

This amendment, put to the vote by show of hands and then by the "sit-stand" procedure for more accuracy, obtained an identical number of for and against.

The session president Laetitia Saint-Paul (LREM) invoked the rule according to which a tie vote resulted in a rejection, drawing the wrath of the right-wing ranks who pleaded that elected representatives in favor of the text had entered the hemicycle in the process of voting.

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.

"This provision would make it possible to streamline the path for women and remove a provision considered infantilizing for the people concerned", argues the explanatory memorandum.

"There is no infringement of the freedom of choice. We do not eliminate the possibility of reflection for those who wish it", pleaded the socialist co-rapporteur Marie-Noëlle Battistel.

Philippe Gosselin (LR) supported this "period of serenity, this time to step back" and estimated that by removing it "we" move 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.

MPs have yet to consider another controversial provision of the bill: the transformation of the double conscience clause that doctors can use to refuse to perform an abortion.

© 2021 AFP