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IVG in the Constitution: the testimony of the pioneers of the right to abortion
IVG in the Constitution: the testimony of the pioneers of the right to abortion
(franceinfo)
While abortion has just been included in the Constitution, two of the 343 women who signed a manifesto declaring that they had illegally resorted to abortion are providing their testimony.
Processions of support marched in France for International Women’s Rights Day, Friday March 8, which began with the sealing in the Constitution of the freedom to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion). Two of the 343 women who signed a manifesto in 1971, declaring that they had had an abortion, testified. One was the youngest of the signatories, the other, the most experienced in activism.
“We are not going to imprison 343 women”
Claudine Monteil, 74, was just 21 when she participated in this column, published in a newspaper that she kept. “Our urgency was already that we say the word ‘abortion’ in public. It was a taboo word“, she remembers.
At 88 years old, Anne Zelensky, founder of the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF), remembers thinking about this action with Simone de Beauvoir. “We are not going to imprison 343 women, (…) we have carefully considered the matter“, she remembers. 53 years later, the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution is also a bit of their victory.
