After the Senate vote in favor of the constitutionalization of abortion, all eyes turn to the government
The Senate took an unprecedented step towards the inclusion of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the Constitution, Wednesday 1er FEBRUARY. The elected representatives of the Palais du Luxembourg voted 166 votes in favor against 152 for a constitutional bill aimed not at registering a “right to abortion” – principle defended in particular by feminist associations and adopted in the National Assembly on November 24 by a large majority – but “ women’s freedom to terminate their pregnancy. inserted in Article 34 of the Constitution. “A step towards compromise” with the Assembly, greeted the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti.
This proposal was adopted through an amendment by Senator Philippe Bas (Les Républicains, LR, Manche): “The law determines the conditions under which a woman’s freedom to terminate her pregnancy is exercised. “There is no absolute right, there is a freedom already recognized and that we can write in the Constitution, justified Philippe Bas with reference to the Veil law of 1975 on abortion, but on the condition that there is a reconciliation between the rights of the pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy and the protection of the unborn child after a certain period. »
On the right, this solitary approach to amending this text has aroused a form of incomprehension and even fierce opposition from some of his colleagues, starting with the president of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau. “I see absolutely no reason to change the vote we already cast last fall, had warned the elected Vendée in session. The French Constitution of the Ve République is not made to send symbolic messages to the whole world. » In October 2022, the senatorial right had failed on the same subject a constitutional law proposal by the environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel.
Once again, a double confrontation – legal and political – took place between opponents and supporters of the constitutionalization of abortion, sometimes even within the senatorial majority, and this until the vote in extremis of the amendment of M. Bas, former collaborator of Simone Veil. “The inclusion of this amendment in this place will not change anything”, argued the chairman of the law commission, François-Noël Buffet (LR, Rhône). “Let’s stop scaring ourselves for things that don’t exist today. Nothing is threatened and there is no point in including in the fundamental law a freedom that has nothing to do with it.added Senator Muriel Jourda (LR, Morbihan).
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