France: Parliament extends the abortion period from 12 to 14 weeks

French Minister of Health Olivier Veran after the Council of Ministers at the Elysee Palace on February 23, 2022. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

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In France, women can now abort up to 14 weeks.

The National Assembly adopted the bill on Wednesday definitively.

Previously they were only entitled to 12 weeks.

The main objective is to respond to the lack of practitioners.

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The bill on the legal deadline for voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) was definitively adopted via a final vote of the National Assembly by 135 votes for, 47 against and 9 abstentions, after a long parliamentary process started in October 2020.

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 ", welcomed the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran.

Presented by former LREM deputy Albane Gaillot, who has become an environmentalist, the transpartisan text was pushed by the president of LREM deputies Christophe Castaner.  

and this choice could be presented as a rare mark of independence of the LREM group vis-à-vis Emmanuel Macron who has repeatedly expressed his reluctance on the subject.

According to Socialist MP Marie-Noëlle Battistel, 2,000 women are forced each year to go abroad to be able to have an abortion because they have exceeded the legal deadlines.

This reform responds to a lack of practitioners and the gradual closure of abortion centers.

She also plans to extend the practice of instrumental interruption to midwives.

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