Session in the National Assembly of France, this Tuesday. TERESA SUAREZ (EFE)
Since this Tuesday, France is a little closer to becoming one of the first countries in the world in which the Constitution enshrines the right to abortion.
The National Assembly has adopted in first reading, as planned, to inscribe in article 34 of the fundamental law the following paragraph: “The law determines the conditions by which the freedom guaranteed to women to resort to a voluntary interruption of the work is exercised. pregnancy."
493 deputies from President Emmanuel Macron's party bloc and the left voted in favor of the bill, and 30 from the right and the extreme right voted against it.
Now the text must go to the Senate, where the conservative majority of Los Republicanos – sister party of the Spanish PP – could stop the process or at least amend the version of the National Assembly.
The president of the Senate, the conservative Gérard Larcher, declared himself against it a few days ago: “The voluntary interruption of pregnancy is not threatened in our country.
If it were threatened, believe me, I would fight to keep it.”
After this Tuesday's vote, the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, said in the chamber: “The National Assembly and the Government have not missed their appointment with the history of women.
Now I am going to take charge of taking your message to the Senate.”
For a constitutional reform to be approved, the Senate and the National Assembly must first adopt exactly the same text.
This is then submitted to a vote by Congress, which is the format of both chambers meeting together.
The reform is definitively adopted if it obtains a minimum of three-fifths of the votes in Congress.
The first initiatives in France to inscribe the right to abortion in the Constitution were presented in response to the ruling of the United States Supreme Court that in the summer of 2022 repealed the historic
Roe v. Wade
ruling , and to restrictions in European countries such as Poland.
The idea was to shield this right from the possibility that at some point a leader or party with a parliamentary majority would come to power to suppress the French law of 1973.
In November 2022, the National Assembly already approved, with 337 votes in favor and 32 against, to inscribe in the Constitution “the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy.”
The law was an initiative of the left that had the support of the Macronists, and followed a procedure that would have led to a referendum, with a perhaps more uncertain outcome.
In February 2023, the Senate adopted its version of the text.
He no longer spoke of “the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy,” but of “a woman's freedom to terminate her pregnancy.”
The difference between “right” and “freedom” sparked debate.
The proposal ran the risk of being shelved.
In March, during a national tribute to the historic lawyer and feminist Gisèle Halimi, Macron interjected: “And today I want the strength of [her] message to help us change our Constitution in order to engrave in it the freedom of women to resort to the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, to solemnly ensure that nothing can hinder or undo what, in this way, will be irreversible.”
In December, the president presented a compromise project, aimed at gathering the maximum consensus and ensuring its adoption in Congress with the votes of the left, the center and the right.
That is why the text adopted on Tuesday speaks, instead of "right", of "guaranteed freedom", an expression that is more likely to please the conservatives in the Senate.
Now they have the key.
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