On the one hand the law, on the other, its implementation. While the hemicycle of the National Assembly will resonate at the end of November with debates on whether or not to enshrine the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the Constitution, health professionals who perform abortions know it. : passing a law does not guarantee that it applies.
The proof with the uneven deployment of the latest legislative change relating to abortion in France, the Gaillot law, which extended the deadlines for abortion by fifteen days, from twelve to fourteen weeks of pregnancy.
Eight months after its adoption on March 2, “ there are places in France where women are still not taken care of beyond twelve weeks of pregnancy, and are redirected to centers that apply the law”denounces the doctor Laura Marin Marin, spokesperson for the National Association of Abortion and Contraception Centers (Ancic), which brings together health professionals who perform abortions.
The Ancic has branches in a good part of the national territory and feedback on the care of women wishing to have a late abortion is diverse. Like a magnifying mirror of the wider difficulties of access encountered by women. “It happens that they are not properly informed about the extension of the deadlines, including by health professionals who are not necessarily aware of this legislative development”says Dr. Marin Marin.
New technical gestures
During the lively debates preceding the adoption of the text, the health professionals who opposed it highlighted the new technical gestures involved in an abortion after a certain period. “Some of those who were against gave mainly technical arguments, quite shocking, to support this reluctance, notes Dr. Marin Marin. However, it has long been possible in our country to terminate pregnancies until term, within the framework of medical terminations of pregnancy, and moreover abortions at fourteen weeks or more are practiced without risk in neighboring countries such as Holland or Spain. »
From thirteen weeks of pregnancy, “A simple aspiration may not be enough, depending on the size of the embryo. It is often necessary to use forceps to remove what is left in the uterus,” admits Doctor Philippe Faucher, yet in favor of lengthening. “I can understand that some refuse to do so, even if it raises questions when one exercises in the public hospital, and that this same argument was used during the previous extension of the deadlines, in 2001, which did not imply a new gesture , observes the obstetrician-gynecologist and president of the Network between the city and the hospital for orthogeny (Revho). But what is needed is then to send the women quickly to a center that agrees to take them in charge. » The Revho keeps the accounts. According to this network of Ile-de-France doctors, in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, only twenty-one out of sixty-three centers perform abortions between twelve and fourteen weeks of pregnancy. They are nineteen out of forty in Occitania.
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