France a step closer to adding abortion rights to constitution
The French Senate has voted to include the right to abortion in the constitution, allowing the process to continue, though the path to a constitutional amendment is long.
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After much debate, the Senate voted on Wednesday in favour of including the right to abortion in the constitution.
With 166 votes for and 152 against, the chamber approved a bill introduced by lawmakers in the National Assembly from the hard-left France Unbowed, with support from the presidential majority.
The move came after the United States’ Supreme Court last year overturned the right to abortion for Americans.
The National Assembly passed the bill in November, and sent it to the Senate, where it was rewritten by Republicain Senator Philippe Bas.
The Senate's text is an amendment to Article 34, which guarantees fundamental public rights.
The formulation uses the term “freedom for a woman to end her pregnancy”.
The National Assembly’s text is an amendment to Article 66, which guarantees individual freedoms, and would guarantee the “right to voluntarily end a pregnancy”.
Without the change, the text would not have passed the Senate, which would have effectively killed the measure, like a previous attempt that was rejected by the Senate in October of last year.
The majority of Senators in Bas’ party voted against his amendment, calling a constitutional amendment superfluous, as the right to abortion is not under threat in France
“The constitution is not made to send symbolic messages to the entire world,” the Senate Republicans’ president Bruno Retailleau said.
The text is now being sent back to the National Assembly for approval. Both houses must agree on the text, before it is put to a referendum to eventually become part of the constitution.
If it eventually passes, France would become the first country in the world to make abortion a constitutional right.
(with AFP)
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