“We are writing History,” welcomed La France insoumise MP Mathilde Panot.

The French Senate adopted on Wednesday the text relating to the inclusion of voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the Constitution, paving the way for a procedure to be ratified in Congress in Versailles.

After long debates in the upper house where the right is in the majority, the senators adopted in the same terms as the National Assembly, by 267 votes for against 50 against text which introduces the notion of "guaranteed freedom" for women of access to abortion, preferred to that of “right to abortion”.

Emmanuel Macron welcomes “a decisive step”

The only article thus stipulates that “the law determines the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to the woman to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy is exercised.

Emmanuel Macron welcomed “a decisive step” in a message on X and announced that he will convene Parliament in Congress next week at the Palace of Versailles.

“After the National Assembly, the Senate is taking a decisive step which I welcome. For the final vote, I will convene Parliament in Congress on March 4.”

I am committed to making women's freedom to have an abortion irreversible by enshrining it in the Constitution.



After the National Assembly, the Senate is taking a decisive step which I welcome.

For the final vote, I will convene Parliament in Congress on March 4.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 28, 2024

“We will be the first country in the world to enshrine in the Constitution this freedom for women to dispose of their bodies,” also welcomed the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, in the wake of the vote.

“This vote reiterates the extent to which we are all attached to this freedom,” he added, welcoming a “historic vote”.

To be adopted, the constitutional reform must obtain a three-fifths majority of the votes of parliamentarians meeting in Congress.

Defenders of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy, guaranteed by the Veil law of 1975, gathered at Place de la Sorbonne in Paris at the call of La France insoumise, in particular.

“Pro-life” activists, for their part, called for a silent rally in the Port-Royal district.

With AFP

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