By Faith Gonia
As legislators cheered and protesters sulked in Versailles on March 4, French lawmakers signed a bill making abortion a constitutionally protected, “guaranteed freedom.” France is the first and only country to ever directly protect abortion rights in a constitution. With 780-72 voting in favor, the bill received an overwhelming majority support.
Even though abortion has been legal in the nation since 1975, the adoption of the law holds great weight during a time of global controversy regarding reproductive rights. President Emmanual Macron proposed the bill immediately after the United States’ Dobbs v. Jackson ruling—a 2022 Supreme Court case which overturned Roe v. Wade, taking away the constitutional right to an abortion.
Unlike the United States, the general French population has historically supported abortion rights, with opposition being a small minority. Nonetheless, officials and citizens alike feared similar “backpedaling” would happen in France. Alarmed by the sudden revocation in America, Macron himself proposed the bill, which promptly received widespread praise.
Evidently, America’s turbulent abortion debate not only worries domestic residents, but also those abroad. One rights advocate, Laura Slimani of Fondation des Femmes, encapsulates the philosophy of supporters: “This right (to abortion) has retreated in the United States. And so nothing authorized us to think that France was exempt from this risk.”
While the new amendment to the French constitution did elicit questions about Macron’s political intentions, as well as the necessity for the amendment altogether, the addition gives countless French citizens relief.