“The abortion journey for some women is still an obstacle course” in France, says this Wednesday, September 28 on franceinfo Sarah Durocher, co-president of Family Planning, on the occasion of the international day for the right to abortion. Planned Parenthood is launching, this Wednesday, a new site dedicated to information on abortion. “There are a lot of disinformation sites” and the association wishes “that women have real information”. In France, one in three women has recourse to abortion (voluntary termination of pregnancy) at least once in her life.
franceinfo: This Wednesday you are launching this new website, ivg-contraception-sexualites.org. Does this mean that the toll-free number is no longer sufficient in the age of highly organized disinformation on the internet?
Sarah Durocher, co-president of Family Planning: Yes quite. For seven years, Family Planning has carried this device and we have about 30,000 calls a year. Today, as soon as you have questions about abortion, contraception or sexuality, you go online. There are a lot of disinformation sites and therefore the objective is really to make people’s rights visible, to make it easier to access the toll-free number (0800 08 11 11). And then, the goal is to develop a chat funded by the Women’s Foundation for a launch next year. I think it takes multiple entryways. Of course, there are also our premises, which welcome 380,000 people a year. It is certain that with an international context where abortion is called into question or restricted, it is important that women in France have real information.
A law passed in 2016 has made it possible to better control these sites, by extending the offense of obstructing abortion. It’s not sufficient ?
Abortion is still a separate act in France. We know that a lot of women feel guilty and don’t say they had an abortion. However, it concerns one in three women. It’s not so easy to go to a police station and be able to file a complaint. But today, there is an obstacle. We are very vigilant about this. I can tell you that there are women who tell us about the obstacles they may experience in terms of information. The objective for those who want to hinder is to make doubt, to give up, to also scare. One of our big demands too is sexuality education from an early age, that is to say to know your rights. We receive women who know very little about it. There are women who tell us that they think it is enough to take a drug from a pharmacy. It’s not that simple. The journey of abortion for some women and in some territories is still an obstacle course.
Last March, the Supreme Court of the United States again authorized the prohibition of abortion in the American States which wish it. The president of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly in France, Aurore Bergé, had called for the right to abortion to be included in the Constitution. In the Senate, environmentalists will file the first constitutional bill to this effect. Do you think that’s a good thing?
We’ve been asking for this for 30 years. This is not new for the feminist movements and for Planned Parenthood. This is a good thing. I think that registering it as a fundamental right is something very important. As a reminder, Emmanuel Macron had also requested that this be included in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. We just have one reservation, which is that we would like a bill and not a bill to speed things up and avoid referendums. The “anti-choices” have a great capacity to mobilize.
If there was a referendum on the issue today, I would be rather optimistic. However, given the international context and the large organization of “anti-choice”, it is quite cautious.