Right to abortion: first green light from deputies for its inclusion in the Constitution

Europe1 .fr with AFP 5 p.m., November 9, 2022

The deputies gave a first green light on Wednesday to the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution, to guard against possible challenges as in the United States, but the initiative cannot succeed if the Senate remains opposed to it.

"No woman can be deprived of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy": the short text adopted Wednesday in the law commission, carried by the leader of the Renaissance deputies, Aurore Bergé, must now be examined in the hemicycle of Assembly the week of November 28.

Another text proposing to engrave this right in the marble of the fundamental law, proposed by his counterpart from LFI Mathilde Panot, must arrive in session before that, on November 24, after a passage in committee scheduled for next week.

"Whatever the group that will have proposed this initiative", Ms. Bergé was delighted that a majority "seems to emerge in the Assembly" on the subject.

“It is neither for the symbol, nor by political opportunism, it is because it is up to us today to take this decisive step together”, pleaded the deputy, specially returned to the Assembly to defend his text. , after giving birth at the end of October.

"I will find my daughter right after", she launched to the address of those "who would wonder about her presence".

"Don't Wait Any Longer"

His initiative, like that of LFI, was announced in June in the wake of a resounding decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which signed the end of abortion as a constitutional right.

Defenders of the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution, in the presidential majority as well as on the left, point out that this achievement is also weakened in European countries.

They cite recent restrictions in Poland and their concerns about countries like Hungary or even Italy.

In France, "associations testify to the presence of powerful movements, often coordinated at European level, which promote the abolition or restriction of the right to abortion", noted Ms. Bergé, judging that "we should not wait for no longer being able to act to be sorry".

"Finally, the presidential majority has woken up," quipped LFI MP Pascale Martin, recalling that the constitutionalization of the right to abortion had been on the program "for years" of the Insoumis.

In addition to the right to abortion, the deputies of the various components of the left pleaded without success so that a right to contraception could also be enshrined in the Constitution, as in the bill tabled by LFI.

"Political Wars"

Elected LR and RN, on the other hand, displayed real reluctance in the face of the text.

"The right to abortion is absolutely not threatened in France", argued MP RN Pascale Bordes, criticizing a formulation which "suggests that access would be unconditional and absolute".

MP LR Virginie Duby-Muller for her part deplored that the subject is "instrumentalized in the name of political squabbles" between the majority and the left, with the filing of competing texts.

Above all, she asked that the constitutionalization of the right to abortion be accompanied by that of "respect for all human beings from the beginning of life, for the sake of balance", an amendment rejected.

For LR, in any case, the text of the deputies "cannot succeed" even if it is adopted by the Assembly, given that the Senate, with a majority on the right, rejected on October 19 at first reading a similar bill, supported by the government.

However, any proposal for a constitutional law must be voted on in the same terms by the two assemblies, before being submitted to a referendum.

The only way to avoid this final stage of a referendum would be for the initiative to revise the Constitution to come from the executive, the President of the Republic then being able to choose to submit the bill to the approval of the two assemblies. gathered in Congress for final adoption.

The deputies must pose "a founding prerequisite", insisted Ms. Bergé, believing that nothing would prevent, after adoption by the Assembly, that "another legislative path of recovery" opens up by the government.