Protesters march behind a banner during an abortion rights rally in Paris on September 28, 2022. Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP
The text had been voted in first reading at the end of last November by the National Assembly, with the support of the presidential majority.
The delicate question of the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution resurfaces this Wednesday, February 1 in the Senate on the occasion of a bill from the Assembly. The right wants this time to change the situation with a counter-proposal.
The LFI deputies’ constitutional bill, which resonates with other parliamentary initiatives on this topic, has been placed on the Senate’s agenda at the instigation of the socialist group. In the background, the historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, last summer, to revoke the right to abortion.
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“An illusory solution”
Unsurprisingly, this text from the left was rejected in committee by the senators, mostly on the right. The committee considered in particular that it “only offered an illusory solution to the concrete difficulties of access to abortion“. But the debate will be relaunched in the hemicycle by an alternative submitted by Senator LR Philippe Bas substituting the notion of “freedom” to the one of “right“.
Read alsoAbortion in the Constitution: Senator LR Philippe Bas proposes an alternative wording
The text carried by the leader of the Insoumis, Mathilde Panot, had been voted in first reading at the end of November by the National Assembly, with the support of the presidential majority. The result of a transpartisan rewriting, it can be summed up in one sentence: “The law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy“. A text “badly written“, retorted Philippe Bas during his examination in committee, excluding “totally» its adoption.
Instead, Philippe Bas, who was a close collaborator of Simone Veil, proposes to complete article 34 of the Constitution with this formula: “The law determines the conditions under which a woman’s freedom to terminate her pregnancy is exercised.“. A wording that would formalize in the fundamental law a freedom according to him “already recognized by the decision of the Constitutional Council of June 27, 2001, which gave it constitutional value“.
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“Respect for beliefs”
The amendment would preserve the possibility of changing the Veil law, as has already been done in the past with modifications which have, for example, extended the period for recourse to abortion and organized its coverage by health insurance, he specifies. Second text inscribed in the “nichePS, the subject will only be discussed at the very end of the afternoon.
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With many unknowns: will the alternative writing of Philippe Bas find a majority on the right, cautious when it comes to touching the Constitution and generally conservative in societal matters? “On social issues, the tradition of the Senate is respect for everyone’s convictions and freedom to vote, beyond partisan divisions“, underlines the former president of the commission of the Laws of the Senate.
“The Debate Begins”
Could it be accepted by the left, although far from the initial objective, but for lack of anything better, so difficult is the course of a proposal for a constitutional law? Because a pure and simple rejection of the text by the Senate would in fact amount to burying it. A proposed constitutional law must indeed be voted on in the same terms by both chambers, then submitted to a referendum to be adopted definitively. Unlike what happens with ordinary laws, the National Assembly cannot havethe last wordin case of disagreement with the Senate.
For PS Senator Laurence Rossignol, the Bas amendment “take a step“. “Finally the debate begins in the Senate“, she welcomed, noting”an interesting move” to the right. But the new wordingis not ours“, she however noted, affirming that “abortion is not just a freedom, it is a right“.
“This amendment does not meet the objectives, but it shows that there is movement in the Senate majority and that is a good thing“, affirmed for her part the environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel, author of a first bill rejected by the senators last October. Co-signed by senators from seven of the eight political groups in the Senate, with the exception of the first of them, Les Républicains, the text was rejected by 139 votes for and 172 votes against.
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