“Unfortunately, nothing is impossible.” A few hours after the historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of revoke the constitutional right to abortion, the Renaissance group (ex-LREM) announced, Saturday, June 25, the filing of a bill to inscribe the right to abortion in the marble of the French Constitution. Aurore Bergé, the brand new president of the group in the National Assembly, prefers to warn: what happened across the Atlantic “calls for us to take steps in France so that we cannot have any reversals tomorrow that could exist.” Franceinfo answers four questions on this parliamentary initiative.
1Where does this bill come from?
This is Mathilde Panot who submitted the idea first. In a tweet published Friday evening at 6:30 p.m., the head of the deputies La France insoumise (LFI) writes that she will propose on Monday to the left alliance (Nupes) “to file a bill to include the right to abortion in the Constitution” French.
The tragedy across the Atlantic obliges us.
To prevent any obstacle to the fundamental right of abortion in France, I propose on Monday to the NUPES to file a bill to include it in the Constitution.
— Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) June 24, 2022
But Saturday morning, Mathilde Panot was made double by the Renaissance group at the National Assembly. Aurore Bergé thus proposed to include “respect for abortion in our Constitution” And this “from today”.
“We both spent the evening on the phone”, tells franceinfo his colleague from the group, Marie-Pierre Rixain. “We wanted to go fast because what is happening in the United States obliges us, continues the LREM MP for the 4th district of Essonne. “We believe we are safe in France, but that is not true. There are conservative forces that are organizing. With this bill, we want to protect the right to abortion for future generations. Upheavals politicians cannot challenge this right.
An initiative supported by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, as she wrote on Twitter.
Dear @auroreberge, the government will strongly support this bill. For all women, for human rights, we must engrave this achievement in stone. Parliament must be able to come together very broadly around this text. https://t.co/pACsGmFFe3
— Elisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) June 25, 2022
2What does this text contain?
In this text of about twenty lines, it is recalled that “this unbearable backward movement”, in progress in the United States, “forces us to recall the indispensable and inviolable nature of the right to abortion in our country and in the world.” This proposed constitutional law stipulates that “no one may be deprived of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”. It therefore offers “to enshrine in the Constitution the impossibility of depriving a person of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG).”
Aurore Bergé insists: “We do not change the Constitution as we change the law” so “it is a guarantee that we must give to women”. The elected representative of Yvelines believes that the measure will be “widely shared on the benches of the National Assembly and the Senate”.
The revision of the Constitution responds to a specific process. It can take place either on the initiative of the President of the Republic, or on the initiative of Parliament. “In this field, the two parliamentary assemblies have the same powers, which implies that the draft or the proposal of constitutional law is voted in the same terms by the National Assembly and the Senate.can we read on the site of the National Assembly. The text is definitively adopted either by referendum or by a majority vote of three-fifths of the votes cast by the two chambers of Parliament meeting in Congress at Versailles.
3Is this the first time that such a bill has been tabled?
Not quite. In 2018, the deputies of the opposition, and in particular of La France insoumise, had already proposed to include the right to contraception and abortion in the French Constitution. It was aboutamendments resulting from the proposals of the High Council for Equality between women and men. But at the time, the National Assembly had rejected the initiative. “There is no need to brandish fears” in France with regard to challenges in foreign countries, even then reacted the co-rapporteur Yaël Braun-Pivet, today the majority candidate for the perch. Nicole Belloubet, then Keeper of the Seals, also explained that this right in France was “sufficiently guaranteed”.
In July 2019, new initiative. Luke Carvounas, then ddeputy PS and member of the National Assembly delegation for women’s rights, had in turn tabled a bill (which we have found) to include the right to abortion in the Constitution. Contacted by franceinfo on Saturday, the current mayor of Alfortville (Val-de-Marne) smiles: “I see that we are taking up our idea… If the deputies of the majority wish it, the text is ready, it is in the boxes. I do not want to get into a controversy: if our work can be used now, it is very good”.
“I remember very well. We made this initiative coincide with the first anniversary of Simone Veil’s pantheonization.”
Luc Carvounas, former PS MPat franceinfo
4Can the right to abortion really be threatened in France?
Contacted by AFP, the president of the Women’s Foundation is concerned. “It would be enough for us to have a Parliament with a conservative majority, and abortion could be prohibited”, reacted Anne-Cécile Mailfert. If, today, no political force promises to question this right, certain remarks can sow doubt. During the 2012 presidential election, Marine Le Pen drew criticism in particular by proposing to de-reimburse “comfort abortions”.
In an interview with Brut last spring, the candidate of the National Rally had tried to make things clear. “I saw that it was very shocking when I mentioned this term at the time, which was a term used by a doctor, which was the term ‘comfort abortion'”, she replied. On the other hand, she always said to herself “against the extension of the duration of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy” 12 to 14 weeks. What the spokesperson for the National Rally, Philippe Ballard, said on franceinfo on Saturday morning. “We are sovereignists, so we are not going to meddle in the affairs of others”evaded the member of the Oise. “The Veil Law [consacrant ce droit en France], we don’t touch it.”
Could the French Parliament repeal the right to abortion? “It could happen but, for that, a majority would have to decide in this direction, and I have big doubts about that”, reacts to BFMTV Gwénaële Calvès, professor of public and constitutional law. “In France, there are problems with access to abortion and difficulties in making it effective. But we are not threatened by a repeal of the Veil law”. SAccording to her, the problem is “very specific to the United States”. Apart from Poland, she says, “it is difficult to imagine that this could happen elsewhere in Europe”.