Joëlle Garrus*
The impact of the inscription of the “guaranteed freedom” to abort in the French Constitution can transcend borders and “will give a boost to the recognition of this fundamental right” in the world, experts and activists hope.
“French pride, universal message,” the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, celebrated this Monday on social network west of Paris.
“France has an international voice, in international bodies and in the United Nations,” Amandine Clavaud, co-director of studies at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a think tank based in Paris, and author of the essay “The Rights of “Women, the great setback.”
By becoming the first country to explicitly inscribe in its Constitution the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, half a century after legalizing it, France “sends a signal” to “French society and a message of hope for the situation of women.” internationally,” he added.
France wants to “open the door to other countries to constitutionalize this right in order to protect it,” said ruling majority deputy Éleonore Caroit before the historic vote.
For the executive director of the European Parliamentary Forum for sexual and reproductive rights (EPF), Neil Datta, the measure is a “very strong symbol” and “can give some impetus to improve legislation on abortion.”
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, welcomed France’s decision which he stated guarantees “women’s rights” and “saves their lives.”
A global conservative retreat
The United States Supreme Court decided in June 2022 to stop recognizing the right to abortion at the federal level, reversing the historic Roe v. 1973 Wade.
Since then, in the United States many states have strongly restricted the rules for performing pregnancy terminations and others have banned it in practice, a fact that has had an impact on public opinion around the world.
“When we saw that the right to abortion was collapsing in the United States, we were shocked, defeated,” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation.
By heading in the opposite direction, France “could serve as an example for progressives in all European countries, to define a course, even if the goal of constitutionalization is not achieved,” Datta said.
“They can proceed with certain liberalizations, to improve their legislation,” he added.
To support this perspective, he cites a precedent: the legalization by Ireland, a Catholic country, of equal marriage in 2015 and abortion in 2018: “That gave a break to all progressive movements in the world,” he stated.
The fact that “France moves to such a high level of protection is very, very important”, because in these times some “actors with a political” and religious agenda “take over the issues” of sexuality and reproduction.
The appropriation “of these issues by” conservative figures “is part of a process” of decline in democracy. Anchoring that right in the Constitution “takes away that instrument,” he added and cited Poland, Hungary, the United States or even Argentina, where this right is under threat.
About 41% of women of reproductive age are in countries where abortion legislation is restrictive, or about 700 million women, according to a report by the French Senate.
“In tribute to Argentine women”
Datta stated that he is confident that “the progressives will win” and highlighted that in Poland the previous conservative government restricted the right to abortion, forcing many women to travel abroad, and something similar happened in the United States at the regional level, which leads to “feeling repugnance by a large part of the political class.”
However, he added that some “fifteen European countries and territories, such as the English Channel or Gibraltar, improved their legal protection” for abortion.
Last year, Germany removed an amendment dating back to the Third Reich that banned any publicity for abortion, Datta added.
Dressed in green and with a scarf of the same color on her forearm, “in homage to Argentine women,” the leftist deputy Mathilde Panot dedicated this “victory” to all those who “fight to decide about their body” in the world.
Raquel Garrido, a leftist French congresswoman born in Chile, said that France’s decision “will have repercussions throughout the world.”
*AFP periodical