HASfter the historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, the right to abortion is coming back to the fore more than ever. In France, the leader of the LREM deputies Aurore Bergé announced, Saturday, June 25, the filing of a bill to include “respect for abortion in our Constitution”. “This also calls for us to take measures in France so that we cannot have any reversals tomorrow that could exist. This is the reason why, as of today, with my group, we are going to table a constitutional bill to include respect for abortion in our Constitution, ”added the elected representative from Yvelines, a former LR at feminist commitment, on France Inter.
Beyond the United States, this decision is “catastrophic for women around the world: you have a woman who dies every 9 minutes because an abortion was performed improperly, in an unsafe manner”, also underlined Aurore Bergé, the new president of the majority group in the Assembly. A bill that the government will support “with force”, replied Elisabeth Borne in stride. “For all women, for human rights, we must set this achievement in stone. Parliament must be able to come together very widely around this text, ”said the Prime Minister on Twitter.
Dear @auroreberge, the government will strongly support this bill. For all women, for human rights, we must engrave this achievement in stone. Parliament must be able to come together very broadly around this text. https://t.co/pACsGmFFe3
— Elisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) June 25, 2022
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A similar proposal from Nupes
Friday evening, the leader of the Insoumis deputies Mathilde Panot had also announced that she would propose to the left alliance Nupes a similar bill. “The president of the LREM group takes up this proposal that the LREM parliamentarians had rejected on several occasions in the previous term of office”, noted in a press release the presidents of the left-wing groups, welcoming this “turnaround” and inviting the filing of a common text by all the voluntary groups.
At the initiative of the socialist Luc Carvounas, the left-wing deputies had tabled such a constitutional bill in 2019, but which had not been placed on the agenda. In July 2018, opposition deputies had sought by amendment to include the right to contraception and abortion in the preamble to the Constitution, but the majority and the government had come out against it, judging these rights sufficiently guaranteed..
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Take “no risk”
Aurore Bergé strongly defended the extension in France of the legal deadline for abortion, voted at the end of the previous legislature. Does she fear a challenge in France? “Unfortunately, nothing is impossible and women’s rights are always rights which are fragile and which are regularly questioned”, she replied on France Inter.
Pointing to the new RN deputies, “fierce opponents of women’s access to abortion”, the MP judged that it was not necessary to “take any risk in this area and therefore secure [le droit à l’IVG] by inscribing it in the marble of our Constitution”. The FN (now RN) was for a long time radically anti-abortion. In 2011, Marine Le Pen reiterated her wish to de-reimburse abortion, then advocated the status quo on the subject, presenting herself as the first defender of women’s rights.
The boss of the LREM deputies insisted: “We do not change the Constitution as we change the law”, so “it is a guarantee that we must give to women”. She believes that the measure will be “widely shared on the benches of the National Assembly and the Senate”. Its bill, sent to Agence France-Presse, stipulates that “no one may be deprived of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”.
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