First blow for an emblematic law. The right-wing majority Senate rejected on Wednesday at first reading a cross-partisan bill to include the right to abortion in the Constitution, supported by the government, but the debate on this passionate subject will rebound next month in the Assembly national.
The text, co-signed by senators from seven of the eight political groups in the Senate, with the exception of the first of them, Les Républicains, was debated within the framework of a space reserved (“parliamentary niche”) for the environmental group. His rejection was won by 139 votes for and 172 votes against, after sometimes lively exchanges which turned into a right-left confrontation.
“The senatorial majority has chosen to register against the will of 81% of French men and women,” reacted the author of the bill Mélanie Vogel, for whom “this battle is not over. It is just beginning”. Two similar constitutional bills are in the pipeline in the National Assembly, on the initiative of the left-wing alliance Nupes and the presidential majority group Renaissance.
At the Palais-Bourbon, the macronists want to carry their text on November 9 in the Law Commission and the week of November 28 in the hemicycle. Inscribing the right to abortion in the Constitution “would have the force of the symbol”, declared the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti. He assured that “the government will respond to support each of the many parliamentary initiatives in this area”.
“A bad law” for Senator LR Muriel Jourda
“Do we prefer a society where the right to abortion is protected at the top of our hierarchy of norms or a society where a simple law can undo it? “Questioned Mélanie Vogel. The rapporteur LR Agnès Canayer argued “that today these rights are fully protected by positive law” and that there was “no reason to import into France a debate linked to American culture”.
“Political risk in France in 2022 does not exist and that’s good,” assured the centrist Loïc Hervé. “Here we are not militants, we make the law and it would obviously be a bad law”, supported Muriel Jourda (LR). On the left, Laurence Rossignol (PS) affirmed that “currents hostile to abortion have never disarmed since 1975”. “Take the hand, table a bill, spare us these random round trips”, she launched to the address of the minister.
A proposed constitutional law, when it is voted on in the same terms by both chambers, must still be submitted to a referendum in order to be adopted definitively. A bill may be submitted to it for approval in Congress.
“A useless text” for Senator Reconquest Stéphane Ravier
“We all know the difficulty of a referendum (…) particularly in this unstable political period”, underlined the senator from Paris Esther Benbassa. Laurence Cohen (CRCE with a communist majority) recalled that her group “had tabled a bill in 2017, even before the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States” to revoke the right to abortion.
The debates ignited when the senator from Bouches-du-Rhône Stéphane Ravier (Reconquest) defended a procedural motion – rejected by 344 votes to one – aimed at the outright rejection of the text, which according to him is “wasting time precious “. “A dangerous, useless text, which allows its authors agitprop,” he said, castigating “attacks on life.”
“You are exactly demonstrating why we are doing what we are doing,” reacted Mélanie Vogel. “Let’s imagine that one day you are in power, well I think that the right to abortion is seriously threatened in this country”, added the minister.
The text found support on the benches of the senatorial majority. 15 centrists voted in favor, including the president of the delegation for women’s rights Annick Billon, the rapporteur for the social security budget Élisabeth Doineau, the quaestor Vincent Capo-Canellas, the vice-president Valérie Létard or the president of the commission of Territorial Development. Two elected LRs also voted in favor and six abstained. With regard to a modification of the Constitution, the Senate has the same powers as the Assembly and has a sort of right of veto.