why does the right adopt this position?

Parliament debates, Wednesday and Thursday, the inclusion of voluntary termination of pregnancy in the Constitution and Gérard Larcher, the President of the Senate (LR), has clearly displayed his hostility. A political calculation which is not without risk for the right.

“Abortion is not threatened”, in France defends Gérard Larcher, the president of the Senate and senator The Republicans (LR), Tuesday morning sur franceinfo, adding that “the Constitution is not a catalog of social and societal rights”. No question for him to approve the government’s constitutional reform project, aimed at enshrining in the Constitution “the freedom guaranteed to women to have recourse” on voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion), while the bill arrives in the Assembly, Wednesday January 24.

This is a campaign promise from Emmanuel Macron that is off to a bad start since, to be adopted, this revision of the Constitution must first be adopted in the same terms by the two Chambers, then be approved by a parliamentary majority of the three fifths. That is to say, without the support of the senatorial right, the reform is likely to fail.

The right had already expressed its reluctance. The government tried to take this into account by guaranteeing in its text “the freedom of women to have recourse” to abortion, a formulation introduced by senator LR Philippe Bas in a text already voted on in the Senate at the end of 2022. “freedom” rather than “access to the right to abortion”, the version which was favored by the majority in the Assembly, but which repelled the right. Gérard Larcher is opposed to this compromise, a political calculation which is not without risk for the right.

A more liberal opinion on societal issues

First, there is no guarantee that the use of abortion will not be threatened tomorrow in France by a new majority. It is already in the United States, but also in Europe, Poland and even Italy. The far right is on the rise on our continent and on Sunday, several thousand opponents of abortion marched in Paris. Furthermore, certain social and societal rights already have constitutional value. In fact, the right, divided on this subject as on so many others, is trying to regain its unity by closing ranks on its more conservative line. She did the same in December on the subject of immigration.

But the difference is that as much as opinion demands more firmness on sovereign issues, it is also evolving in a more liberal direction on societal issues. We saw this with marriage for all or more recently PMA for all women. Once again, LR risks being caught on the wrong foot, as illustrated by the choice for the Europeans of a head of the list, François-Xavier Bellamy, viscerally hostile to the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution.