“The next step is to include it in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights,” says lawyer Rachel-Flore Pardo

After the Senate’s favorable vote for the inclusion of voluntary termination of pregnancy in the Constitution, the lawyer and feminist activist Rachel-Flore Pardo affirmed Thursday February 29 on France Inter that “the next step” is to include abortion in “the charter of fundamental rights of the European Union to protect all European women”. She also believes that after the approval of the Senate, “France will be able to defend this registration”. She nevertheless recognizes that this “will not be an easy path.”

The Senate vote on Wednesday represents, in the eyes of Rachel-Flore Pardo, a “historic feminist victory”. The co-founder of the Stop Fisha association, which fights against sexist and sexual cyberviolence, sees it as a “guarantee for the future”. “It will be much more difficult if tomorrow there were other political majorities present in our country to change this right, this freedom of women to voluntarily terminate their pregnancies”, she assures. Rachel-Flore Pardo is convinced that registering “abortion in the Constitution” will allow “fight tomorrow” the difficulties still encountered by women who wish to have an abortion in France. She mentions in particular “inequality” geographical, with “areas that are medical deserts where it can be very difficult to get an appointment.”

After the adoption of the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution by the National Assembly and the Senate, Parliament must meet in Congress on Monday. After this final step, this right “written in stone in a certain way, because we cannot offer more guarantees than that”, underlines Rachel-Flore Pardo. The lawyer believes that the approval of senators “sends a signal to European women and to women around the world.”

The feminist activist rightly considers that the fight does not stop at the French borders and fears that there will be “other battles to fight tomorrow”. “This fight for the freedom of women to dispose of their bodies is intrinsically international”, she insists. Rachel-Flore Pardo recalls that in the world “a woman dies every 9 minutes from a clandestine abortion”, or “47,000 women per year”.