A dramatic turn of events this Wednesday 1st in the Senate.
After having rejected the constitutionalization of abortion on October 19, submitted by an ecologist, the upper house finally adopted it by 166 votes against 152. A positive vote which masks the division of the right and the center on the subject because sixteen LR senators voted for, 119 against, when only 17 centrist senators voted for and 28 against.
If a decisive minority of centrist senators have changed their position compared to the fall, it is because the quaestor LR Philippe Bas introduced an amendment last week.
Under his pen, the text of the constitutional bill (PPLC) as it had been voted on November 24 by the deputies - "The law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy " - became :
“The law determines the conditions under which a woman's freedom to terminate her pregnancy is exercised.
»
A way to resume, according to the former collaborator of Simone Veil at the Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and the City, “the balance of the Veil law”.
If the left judged the new version of the constitutional bill imperfect, preferring the term “right” to that of “freedom”, it massively supported this formulation.
During the debates, which were sometimes lively, several LR senators tried to oppose the amendment of their own colleague.
“There is not on one side the camp of dignity and on the other that of indignity
(…).
Is this PPLC rational?
I do not believe that.
Our right to abortion is not threatened in France by any political formation ”, argued in particular the president of the LR group Bruno Retailleau.
“Why, tomorrow, not constitutionalize assisted suicide?
»
“Tomorrow, why not the end of life, PMA?
»
“The Constitution is not a symbol, it is something serious
(…)
.
Tomorrow, why not the end of life, PMA?
“, also wondered Dominique de Legge (LR), when his colleague Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio (LR) wondered if it was “relevant to seize an issue which is addressed to American society ".
The debate on the constitutionalization of abortion arose from the revocation of this constitutional right by the Supreme Court in the United States last June.
"It is a formula that is frequently found in the statement of constitutional principles", defended about his text Philippe Bas, considering that in the event of "change of jurisprudence of the Constitutional Council" on abortion, hypothesis which he recognized as improbable, "the woman's freedom to terminate her pregnancy would be preserved".
"The author himself recognizes that the amendment does not add anything", reacted the rapporteur (LR) of the Law Commission, Agnès Canayer, according to whom it is "important that the Constitution is not a catalog of rights and freedoms”.
"You validate the agit-prop initiative of the far left", reproached the senator (Reconquest) Stéphane Ravier to Philippe Bas, urging his colleagues to reject the text.
In vain.
Is abortion now included in the constitutional text?
We are far from it.
To be adopted, a PPLC must be voted on by both assemblies in the same terms.
The text must therefore go back to the National Assembly.
If passed, it would then be put to a referendum.
