The two MPs Marie-Noëlle Battistel, from the Socialist Party and Cécile Muschotti, from La République en Marche, made a report. They plead for lengthening the legal limit for performing surgical abortion.
In a report published this Wednesday, September 16, the delegation for women's rights to the Assembly recommends raising the legal limit for performing surgical abortion from 12 to 14 weeks gestation. This recommendation arises to avoid "a course of combat" according to Marie-Noëlle Battistel and Cécile Muschotti, members of the National Assembly. Accompanied by the president of the delegation, Marie-Pierre Rixain, they thus defend "a freedom of choice."
True freedom of choice
This report responds to the government's reluctance that arose last May. Indeed, these proposals have already been exposed during containment. The Senate had refused a temporary extension of abortion times during the health crisis. This provision is the subject of numerous political and ethical debates.
3,000 to 5,000 patients forced to go abroad
The deputies informed that, each year, 3,000 to 5,000 French patients travel abroad to be able to have an abortion. In Spain and the Netherlands, for example, the legal deadline is longer and therefore exceeds the 12 legal weeks for France. This is why the extension in France seems to them more and more important. Having to go abroad to have an abortion is restrictive, not to mention the mental load and stress it adds.
This dearly and hard-won right remains fragile
A questioning of the conscience clause
In addition, Marie-Noëlle Battistel called for the elimination of the conscience clause. This allows a doctor to refuse to perform an abortion. According to her, this will avoid a "sigmatization of abortion" and a more serene and battle-free journey for the patients. The idea is not to take away the freedom of choice of practitioners. It would rather be a matter of forcing them to refer the patient to colleagues who perform abortion. Moreover, the report recalls that this obligation does exist in the public health code. The aim is therefore to avoid making abortion something "simply tolerated" but rather to make it "a right in its own right."
On the occasion of the examination of the report, Marie-Noëlle Battistel indicated that the various measures presented would be the subject of a bill. She will "soon filed" by the delegation.
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