The result was expected, despite the silence of the government.
This Tuesday, the deputies adopted by majority, at second reading, the bill aimed at strengthening the right to abortion.
It includes in particular the extension of the legal period of abortion from 12 to 14 weeks and the possibility for midwives to perform this act.
If the proposal was defended by the opposition - Albane Gaillot (ex-LREM, non-registered) and Marie-Noëlle Battistel (PS) - the deputies of the LREM group supported the text.
The government had refused to comment on the subject.
However, the National Assembly refused to remove the specific conscience clause allowing doctors to refuse to perform an abortion, yet one of the flagship provisions of a bill aimed at strengthening the right to abortion.
This deletion of the clause specific to abortion met with a barrage on the right, but also with reservations from the Minister of Health Olivier Véran.
A show of hands on amendments tabled by LR deputies emptied Article 2 of the bill of its substance, which resulted in the elimination of this clause specific to abortion, while maintaining the general conscience clause of doctors faced with any medical act to which they are opposed.
First rejection in the Senate
This Monday, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, had explained that the government would give "a wisdom opinion", that is to say that it relies on the decision of the deputies without giving direction to his majority.
However, he had assured to be personally favorable to the fact "of being able to abort later than now".
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This provision was finally 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 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 feminist activist's whim" but was inspired by "meetings in the field".
“The subject is not technical, the subject is the right of women to dispose of their bodies,” she pleaded.
An amendment rejected on the wire
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 greater 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 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 deleting 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.