Seven months after the commitment to include the use of abortion in the Constitution, the bill will be presented this week to the Council of State. But the President of the Republic will have to convince Parliament.
“In 2024, the freedom of women to have an abortion will be irreversible”, promised Emmanuel Macron on X (ex-Twitter), Sunday October 29. The Head of State made this commitment on March 8, on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day. But He will have to go through several stages before the freedom to resort to abortion is included in the Constitution. And to achieve this, the President of the Republic will have to gather a maximum of votes, from all parties, in both houses of Parliament.
In the coming days, the members of the Council of State will first look at the text submitted by Emmanuel Macron, as required by article 39 of the Constitution. They will give an opinion before the project is presented to the Council of Ministers, by the end of the year.
The same text in both Chambers
Once approved by the government, the text will head to Parliament. As it is a constitutional law, the Senate and the National Assembly are equal, they have the same powers. The constitutionalization of abortion must be adopted in the same terms in both chambers. For other texts, such as ordinary laws, if the senators and deputies do not agree, it is the lower house which wins at the end of the parliamentary shuttle.
However, last year, the deputies and senators already voted on this question and the terms retained by the two chambers were not the same: the National Assembly had opted for the wording “right” to abortion while that the Senate had chosen “freedom” to use it. Once the text has been adopted in each of the two chambers, the last step is located in Versailles, where the elected officials are gathered in Congress. To adopt the revision of the Constitution, they must decide by a majority of 3/5 of the votes cast.
A tighter gap in the Senate
The Senate and the National Assembly voted on whether to include the use of abortion in the Constitution last November and February. On November 24, 2022, the lower house adopted by a very large majority a text to include the “right to abortion” in the Constitution: 337 deputies for and 32 deputies against. Among these opponents, 13 were in the ranks of the Republicans and 23 in the National Rally. Lise Pollet, RN deputy who voted against, explained her opposition to franceinfo. “We are going to put everything in stone because we are afraid that someone will arrive? she asks. During this time we don’t talk about important subjects, there are priorities.”
At the Luxembourg Palace, on February 1, the gap was, however, much closer. With 166 for and 152 against, the senators voted for the inclusion in the Constitution of the “freedom of women” to resort to abortion, a formulation which abandons the notion of “right”. But for Mélanie Vogel, EELV senator who presented the text to the upper house, it was already a victory. “When I proposed to my colleagues to propose this law, my friends told me that it was not possible. But we succeeded because Parliament is pushed by society”assures the MP.
The majority will need additional votes
For the moment the number of votes acquired is only 503 out of the 925 in Congress. However, if all parliamentarians take part in the vote, 48 additional votes will be required. For the moment, LFI has not removed from its parliamentary niche of November 30 the second reading examination of the text on the right to abortion in the Constitution. But she could decide that soon.
But the majority can hope to gather sufficient votes. By adding all the Renaissance, left, LIOT and radical votes, it arrives at 551 votes, according to a government source at franceinfo. The majority will therefore only need a few additional votes, to be obtained from the centrists or from LR.