The National Assembly voted in favor of the inclusion of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the Constitution, this Thursday. A proposal supported by the deputies of the Nupes and the majority. The deputies adopted by 337 votes against 32 a compromise text, in the hope of obtaining the approval of the Senate, essential for a constitutional reform.
LR and RN were divided between for, against and abstention. The president of the RN Marine Le Pen group supported the text.
As a reminder, this proposal was debated in the Assembly after a first rejection by the Senate, with a majority on the right, in October. The senators had voted against the text, by 139 votes for and 172 votes against, after sometimes lively exchanges which had turned into a right-left confrontation. “The senatorial majority has chosen to register against the will of 81% of French men and women,” reacted at the time the author of the bill, the ecologist Mélanie Vogel. Inscribing the right to abortion in the Constitution “would have the force of the symbol”, had for his part declared the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti.
The debate was launched after the decision of the American Supreme Court to revoke the right to abortion last June, leaving the freedom to prohibit it or not to the States. 413 French lawyers had signed a petition to “perpetuate the right to abortion by making it climb the ladder of the internal legal order to the top, the constitutional block” in July.
The president of the LFI group Mathilde Panot hailed a “historic” vote on Thursday. “the Assembly speaks to the world, our country speaks to the world”, she launched, dedicating the text to the women of the United States, Poland and Hungary, countries where the right to abortion has been challenged. After the vote, the deputies from the left and from the presidential camp rose twice to applaud, while LR and RN remained seated.
Macronist Sacha Houlié, chairman of the Law Commission, welcomed a “big step”. “But this is only a first step,” he recalled, mentioning the need to convince the Senate. The president of the Renaissance group Aurore Bergé withdrew a similar text, which was scheduled for Monday, to vote on this compromise of “the whole Assembly”. Left and majority agreed at midday on a common formulation: “The law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”.