They all describe this stage as “historic”.
This is because feminist associations have spared no effort to tip the scales in favor of the vote for the constitutionalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG), this Wednesday evening in the Senate by a very large majority.
Campaign of calls on parliamentarians' emails by Family Planning, petition from the Women's Foundation which has collected more than 100,000 signatures including those of the Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux, the actress Muriel Robin and the politician Christiane Taubira , demonstration at Place de la Sorbonne in Paris during the debates in the upper house organized by the Abortion in Europe collective – Women decide…
“It’s already a great victory but pure joy, I expect it on March 4 when the Congress will have definitively adopted the project,” reacts Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation, who went to the palace from Luxembourg to follow the debates.
This constitutional revision could make France the first country in the world to write this right in stone.
An impact well beyond our borders
“Right” or rather “freedom” to have recourse to an abortion, in accordance with the voted text.
What deplores Violaine De Filippis Abate, spokesperson for the association Dare feminism!
“A freedom is less protective than a right which would require the State to provide itself with the means to make it effective,” tempers the expert, who is also a lawyer.
However, she does not shy away from her pleasure: “This vote in the Senate, by a very large majority moreover, is still an important gesture and gives great hope of seeing the acronym IVG included in the Constitution.
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Also read “A decisive step” towards the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution: behind the scenes of the “yes” of the Senate
They also evoke a vote whose repercussions go well beyond French borders.
For Sarah Durocher, president of Family Planning, “this is a strong message sent to all feminists around the world who are fighting for this right and with whom we stand in solidarity.
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Lola Schulmann, advocacy manager for the rights of women and gender minorities at Amnesty International France,
also recalls that
“access to abortion is hindered, or even prohibited, in many countries, including in the European Union, and people who defend it are stigmatized and harassed.”
Anne-Cécile Mailfert concedes: “When women's rights progress somewhere, they all win.
We are showing them today that it is possible.
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