Abortion Become a Constitutional Right: France’s Historic Vote

This week France became the first country in the world to enshrine a woman's right to an abortion in its constitution. This groundbreaking change to the state’s constitution came as a reactionary political move to the U.S. overturning of the precedent court case Roe v. Wade (the Supreme Court ruling in the United States that included a women’s right to abortion within the constitutional right to privacy). Currently in the United States of America, Republican leaning states such as Alabama and Georgia have banned virtually any kind of termination of pregnancy after conception (Sherman et al., Guardian, 2024).This poses a threat to women’s health through forced unviable pregnancies, with cases like ectopic pregnancies being potentially life threatening.

In Paris, the calls for this change to the constitution have been heard loud and clear with widespread protests supporting the motion being held in the weeks prior. Women’s rights supporters, charities and NGOs have spoken out about the need for this commitment as the “Abortion Europe, Women Decide” (Avortement, Les Femmes Décident) collective have stress the symbolic importance of this constitutional right as the decline in women’s freedom of choice has been seen on a global scale.

Image:https://www.semafor.com/article/02/01/2024/france-moves-to-enshrine-abortion-rights-in-direct-response-to-us-restrictions

The Bill to amend France’s constitution was proposed earlier this year by President Macron, with the final step of a parliamentary voting majority of 3/5th achieved on the 4th March 2024. France’s actions have also been noted as a reaction to the growing far right political leadership in Europe, such as Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen (National Rally party leader). Some have criticised President Macron of using politically motivated mandates to gain voter approval and misusing constitutional reform for personal political gains.

Through enshrining such a controversial political issue as a constitutional right Macron sets a dangerous precedent of future politicians using the conditional reform for electoral gains; as the issue of women’s bodily autonomy is still a widely debated topic on the global political stage. Macron’s decision to lobby for this constitutional reform can also be seen as an attempt to fall back on his grassroots left wing origins after constant compromise on electoral mandates in the centrist political party Renaissance.

Macron’s plan to amend the constitution has also been criticised and a purely political move, ‘setting a trap’ (Schofield, 2024) for the National Rally Party, using the current issue of abortion rights to polarise the right wing of parliament from the left, eliciting a leftist cry of support from voters if the French National Rally were to block this motion from the legislature. Much to president Macron's supposed disappointment, Marine Le Pen didn’t bite. Although more right leaning parties in the national assembly were politically against the motion, due to electoral disapproval they were forced to secede the motion and pass it into the constitution by voting in favour. Whatever President Macron's initial intention, this change to the constitution has had decidedly political gains for his presidency and shown that left leaning political Leaders are yet to be fully dominated by the right in France. Being the only amendment to France’s constitution since 2008, its significance should not be understated as the ongoing global hierarchical order becomes increasingly unstable between allied states, as Chinese state economic power increases and the hostility in Russian foreign policy with the War in Ukraine continues.

This conditional right is a proactive political message to the rest of the western world, showing that the issues of women’s rights and bodily autonomy is yet to be said and done on the global stage. The question to ask now is how will this significant national change in France have a ripple effect on EU states as France may take on a more proactive role on abortion rights in their foreign policy. However the message is received, this historic vote in the parliament has clearly shown where France stands on the issue, with widespread support from the public when later that day as the Eiffel Tower lit up with the message: ‘my body my choice’.

image: AFP https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/03/05/why-france-has-made-abortion-a-constitutional-right

Bibliography:

Schofield, H. (2024). Why Macron hopes abortion rights are a political winner. BBC News. [online] 3 Mar. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68456231.

Sherman, C. and Witherspoon, A. (2023). Abortion rights across the US: we track where laws stand in every state. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/nov/10/state-abortion-laws-us.

The Economist. (n.d.). Why France has made abortion a constitutional right. [online] Available at: https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/03/05/why-france-has-made-abortion-a-constitutional-right [Accessed 10 Mar. 2024].

Wright, G. (2024). France makes abortion a constitutional right. BBC News. [online] 4 Mar. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68471568.

Xu, J.B., Xiaofei (2024). France becomes world’s first country to enshrine right to an abortion in constitution. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/04/europe/france-abortion-constitution-intl/index.html.