“Abortion, free and free. Everywhere, for everyone“. Nearly 200 people chant this message on the Place de la République in Orléans. A rally to defend the right to abortion, in reaction to the decision of the Supreme Court in the United States, concerning this right to abortion. Each American state now has the choice to prohibit or limit access to abortion. A shocking step back in the ranks of the Orleans demonstrators. They claim the inclusion of this right in the French Constitution, to prevent such a scenario from happening to us. They also ask additional means to effectively allow access to abortion anywhere in France.
Almost 50 years after the Veil law, the return of a fight
In Orleans, among the demonstrators, some know this fight well. They took it to France before the vote on the Veil law in 1974. This is the case, for example, of Bianca, a member of the Gay and Lesbian Collective of Loiret “I fought in the early days because no matter what our enemies say, our bellies belong to us. We must put an end to the patriarchy which always wants to meddle in what does not concern it“. Bianca remembers this well. what abortions looked like before the Veil law : “It looked like coat hangers, clandestine abortions, and the women were dying (…) That the young people don’t know anymore“. This activist reacts with horror to the decision of the United States Supreme Court: “It is unacceptable what is happening, we are going back to the Middle Ages (…) We always say that what is happening in the United States comes back to us ten years later. I think that this Veil law must be written in due form in the Constitution, once and for all, that we cannot go back“.
– Manon Klein
Among the young demonstrators gathered in Orléans, some indeed fear a possible decline in France. The arrival of 89 Rassemblement National deputies in the National Assembly is mentioned on several occasions as a potential threat to this right to abortion. Beyond elected officials, the anti-abortion discourse also finds other disciples. On the social network Tiktok, for example, some demonstrators say they have seen these messages circulating in large numbers against abortion lately.
Insufficient means in France to guarantee this right
If the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution, as will be proposed by the deputies of the majority, is supported by the demonstrators, for some it is also urgent need to mobilize resourcesas explained by Valérie Martin, of the collective Offensive féministe “There is something that should not be forgotten, it is that today the state of the public hospital is disastrous, that there are more than 130 Planned Parenthoods which have closed. Which means that today, it’s not so much about having the right to abort, but also about having access (…) We know very well that in our region, in our department particularly , there are medical deserts, and therefore it will also hinder the application of this right (…) What must be questioned is the real political will. When we talk about entering the Constitution, we agree, these are words. They are certainly important, but at some point, what do we see on the ground? It is that today for women it is more and more difficult to access abortion”.
The next major meeting to defend this right in the Loiret will take place on September 28, International Abortion Rights Day.