In world first, France makes abortion a constitutional right

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Abortion rights are more widely accepted in France than in the United States and many other countries, with polls showing around 80 per cent of French people back the fact that abortion is legal.

“We’re sending a message to all women: your body belongs to you and no one can decide for you,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told lawmakers ahead of the vote.

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Women have had a legal right to abortion in France since a 1974 law - which many harshly criticised at the time.

But the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to reverse the Roe v Wade ruling that recognised women’s constitutional right to abortion prompted activists to push France to become the first country to explicitly protect the right in its basic law.

But the move was not exempt from criticism.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said President Emmanuel Macron was using it to score political points, because of the large support for the right to abortion in the country.

“We will vote to include it in the Constitution because we have no problem with that,” Le Pen told reporters ahead of the Versailles vote, while adding that it was an exaggeration to call it a historic step because, she said, “no one is putting the right to abortion at risk in France”.

An anti-abortion activist holds placard that translates as “shame” near the Palace of Versailles in Paris on Monday after a vote that will make abortion a constitutional right. Photo: AP

Pascale Moriniere, the president of the Association of Catholic Families, called the move a defeat for anti-abortion campaigners.

“It’s [also] a defeat for women,” she said, “and, of course, for all the children who cannot see the day.”

Moriniere said there was no need to add the right to abortion to the constitution.

“We imported a debate that is not French, since the United States was first to remove that from law with the repeal of Roe v Wade,” she said. “There was an effect of panic from feminist movements, which wished to engrave this on the marble of the constitution.”