On Monday, France enshrined a right to abortion in its constitution, the first country in the world to do so.
“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said before lawmakers voted 780-72 to pass the amendment, according to The New York Times.
Shockingly, the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 contributed to the push in France to protect abortion in the constitution (via The New York Times):
The amendment declares abortion to be a “guaranteed freedom,” overseen by Parliament’s laws. That means future governments will not be able to “drastically modify” the current laws funding abortion for women who seek one, up to 14 weeks into their pregnancies, according to the French justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti.
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The motivation for the latest change was the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, an issue raised repeatedly by legislators.
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“France is showing the right to abortion is no longer an option, it’s a condition of our democracy,” said Mélanie Vogel, a Green Party senator and major force behind the bill.
Ms. Vogel said in an interview, “I want to send a message to feminists outside of France. Everyone told me a year ago it was impossible.” She added: “Nothing is impossible when you mobilize society.”
People in France are celebrating a vote to make killing babies in abortions a constitutional right.
— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) March 4, 2024
This is EVIL. pic.twitter.com/1W7NbICB56
In a statement, the French Bishops’ Conference said, “we must continue to serve life from conception to death, to be artisans of respect for every human being, which is always a gift given to all others, and to support those who choose to keep their child even in difficult circumstances.”
“Let us pray that our fellow citizens will rediscover the taste for life, for giving it, for receiving it, for accompanying it, for having and raising children,” the bishops concluded.
According to the Associated Press, other European countries have been expanding their abortion laws since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. In France specifically, polls have shown that 80 percent of residents back abortion rights.
"This right (to abortion) has retreated in the United States. And so nothing authorised us to think that France was exempt from this risk," Laura Slimani, a member of the Fondation des Femmes rights group, told Reuters.
France limits elective abortions to 14 weeks gestation. This has been the law of the land since the 1970s, when abortion was first legalized in the country. This is not as extreme as legislation congressional Democrats in the United States want to enact.
In the United States, congressional Democrats have worked nonstop to codify Roe since it was overturned. As Guy covered, it's next to impossible to get any Democrats to name a single acceptable limitation on abortion, though the American people broadly support several restrictions. And, the Democrat Women's Caucus recently voted unanimously against a bill that would require medical care for living babies who are born during third-trimester abortions.