French President Emmanuel Macron and Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti attend a ceremony to seal the right to abortion in the French constitution, on International Women’s Day, at the Place Vendome, in Paris, on March 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

France inscribed the guaranteed right to abortion in its constitution on March 8, a powerful message of support for women’s rights on International Women’s Day.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti used a 19th-century printing press to seal the amendment in France’s constitution at a special public ceremony. Applause filled the cobblestoned Place Vendome as France became the first country to explicitly guarantee abortion rights in its national charter.

The measure was overwhelmingly approved by French lawmakers earlier this week, and Friday’s ceremony means it can now enter into force.

While abortion is a deeply divisive issue in the United States, it’s legal in nearly all of Europe and overwhelmingly supported in France, where it’s seen more as a question of public health rather than politics. French legislators approved the constitutional amendment on Monday in a 780-72 vote that was backed by many far-right lawmakers.

Friday’s ceremony in Paris was a key event on a day focused on advancing women’s rights globally. Marches, protests and conferences are being held from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Mexico City and beyond.

Also Read: What is the historic amendment that enshrined abortion access in France’s Constitution? | Explained

The French constitutional amendment has been hailed by women’s rights advocates around the world, including places where women struggle to access birth control or maternal health care. French President Emmanuel Macron called it a direct result of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 rescinding long-held abortion rights.

Macron’s critics questioned why he pursued the measure in a country with no obvious threat to abortion rights but where women face a multitude of other problems.

While some French women saw the step as a major win, others said that in reality not every French woman has access to abortion.

“It’s a smokescreen,” Arya Meroni, 32, said of the event.

“The government is destroying our health care system, many family planning clinics have closed,’’ she said at an annual “Feminist Night March” in Paris on the eve of International Women’s Day.

France has a persistently high rate of women killed by their partners and challenges remain in prosecuting sexual abuse against women by powerful celebrities and other men. French women also see lower pay and pensions — especially women who are not white.

Macron’s government said the abortion amendment was important to avoid a U.S.-like scenario for women in France, as hard-right groups are gaining ground and seeking to turn back the clock on freedoms around Europe.

Macron will preside over the constitutional ceremony. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti will use a 100-kilogram (220-pound) press from 1810 to imprint the amendment in France’s 1958 constitution.

It will include the phrase, “the freedom of women to have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed.” The ceremony will be held outdoors with the public invited, in another first.

France follows in the footsteps of the former Yugoslavia, whose 1974 constitution included the phrase: “A person is free to decide on having children.” Yugoslavia’s successor states retained similar language in their constitutions, though they did not spell out guaranteed abortion rights.

Not everyone saw the day as a cause for celebration, as angry protest marches were held in numerous countries.

The head of the Danish Trade Union Confederation, which has 1.3 million members, chafed at how differently women and men are treated in some areas.

“Unfortunately, we still see sky-high pay differences, professions dominated by one sex, a gender-segregated labor market, harassment cases that primarily affect women and a wide range of other equality problems,” Morten Skov Christensen said.

In other events Friday:

In Ireland, voters will decide whether to change the constitution to remove passages referring to women’s domestic duties and broadening the definition of the family.

At street rallies in Seoul, participants had an eye on next month’s parliamentary elections in South Korea and expressed hope that parties would prioritize gender equality.

In Russia, where the United Nations says human rights have deteriorated since the military’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin saluted Russian women fighting in the war and those waiting at home for their loved ones who had been deployed.

Protesters in Istanbul plan to call attention to violence against women, and rallies are expected in many cities. Protests in Turkey are often political and, at times, violent, rooted in women’s efforts to improve their rights as workers. This year’s global theme is “Inspire Inclusion.”

Indonesian demonstrators demanded adoption of the International Labor Organization’s conventions concerning gender equality and eliminating workplace violence and harassment. Labor rights groups in Thailand marched to the Government House to petition for better work conditions, and activists marching against violence in the Philippine capital were stopped by police near the presidential palace, sparking a brief scuffle.

India’s government cut the price of cooking gas cylinders by 100 rupees ($1.20) with Prime Minister Narendra Modi posting on social media that the move was “in line with our commitment to empowering women.”

The United Nations children’s agency said in a report released on International Women’s Day that more than 230 million women and girls around the world have undergone female genital mutilation. The number has increased by 30 million in the past eight years, it said.

“We’re also seeing a worrying trend that more girls are subjected to the practice at younger ages, many before their fifth birthday. That further reduces the window to intervene,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

Officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977, International Women’s Day is a national holiday in about 20 countries, including Russia, Ukraine and Afghanistan.

The story so far: The French Parliament on March 4 overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right at a historic joint session at the Palace of Versailles. With this, it has become the only country to explicitly guarantee a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy.

During the extraordinary voting session, out of the 902 legislators, 780 voted in favour of the bill, 72 voted against it and 50 abstained. The measure was promised by President Emmanuel Macron following a rollback of abortion rights in the United States in recent times, especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 50-year-old ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Abortion, although legal in France since 1975, will now be a “guaranteed freedom” for women. The amendment had already been passed by the National Assembly in January and by the Senate last week. However, final approval by parliamentarians at a joint session was needed to effect constitutional change.

In the lead-up to the historic vote, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal paid tribute to Simone Veil, a prominent legislator and feminist who in 1975 championed the bill that decriminalised abortion in France. “It takes one generation, one year, one week for things to change drastically,” he cautioned in his opening speech.

The law will now be authenticated by a “seal of congress” and sent to the government. In a symbolic gesture, Mr. Macron will attend a ceremony to finalise the constitutional amendment on March 8, International Women’s Day.

What does the constitutional reform say?

The Bill, introduced last year, amended the 17th paragraph of Article 34 of the French constitution. The amendment stipulates that “the law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy, which is guaranteed.” This means that future governments will not be able to drastically modify existing laws which permit termination up to 14 weeks.

Indicating how abortion rights have come under the scanner in many countries across Europe, the introduction to the legislation states, “Unfortunately, this event is not isolated: in many countries, even in Europe, there are currents of opinion that seek to hinder at any cost the freedom of women to terminate their pregnancy if they wish.”

Although rare, amending the constitution is not without precedent in France. The French Constitution has been modified over 17 times since it was adopted in 1958. The last instance was in 2008 when the Parliament was awarded more powers and presidential tenure was limited to a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms in office.

France is the only country to currently have such a specification pertaining to abortion, although former Communist-run Yugoslavia’s 1974 constitution said that “a person is free to decide on having children” and that such a right can only be limited “for the reasons of health protection.” After its disintegration in the early 1990s, several Balkan states adopted similar measures without an explicit constitutional guarantee. For instance, Serbia’s constitution in less specific terms states that “everyone has the right to decide on childbirth.”

However, some argue that abortion was already constitutionally protected following a 2001 ruling in which France’s constitutional council based its approval of abortion on the notion of liberty enshrined in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, which is technically a part of the Constitution.

How has it been received?

Unlike in the United States, the issue of abortion is not highly divisive across the political spectrum in France. Most French people believe that abortion is a woman’s right and an essential public health service. A poll conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) in 2022 showed 81% of respondents were in favour of enshrining the right to have an abortion in the Constitution. According to government figures, 234,000 abortions were carried out in France in 2022.

The right to abortion has not faced any significant challenges from political parties in France, including conservatives and the far-right National Rally party. While some right-wing senators from the Républicains party voted against a first attempt to change the Constitution in October 2022, the stance of major political parties has generally aligned with that of the French public. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, told Reuters earlier that the move was unnecessary and a political gimmick, although her party would not vote against it.

The Vatican and the French Conference of Bishops have, however, opposed the amendment and so have other anti-abortion groups such as the Association of Catholic Families. Critics have also warned that the move is a conscious effort by Mr. Macron to appeal to left-leaning figures in his Renaissance party after controversial pension and immigration reforms.

What is the status in other European countries?

Abortion is currently accessible in more than 40 European nations, but some countries are seeing increased efforts to limit access to the procedure. In September last year, Hungary’s far-right government made it obligatory for women to listen to the pulse of the fetus, sometimes called the “foetal heartbeat,” before they can access a safe abortion.

Poland, which has some of the most stringent abortion laws in Europe, allows termination only in the event of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s health or life. Restrictions were further tightened in 2020 when the country’s top court ruled that abortions on the grounds of foetal defects were unconstitutional.

The United Kingdom permits abortion to 24 weeks of pregnancy, if it is approved by two doctors. Delayed abortions are allowed only if there exists a danger to the mother’s life. However, women who undergo abortions after 24 weeks can be prosecuted under the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861.

Also Read:How many countries allow abortion on request, where is abortion completely prohibited, and more

Italy resisted Vatican pressure and legalised abortion in 1978 by allowing women to terminate pregnancies up to 12 weeks or later if their health or life was endangered. However, the law allows medical practitioners to register as “conscientious objectors,” thereby making access to the procedure extremely difficult.

The French initiative could however embolden efforts to add abortion to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

What do experts have to say?

“It’s not stating reproductive choices or the right to have children; it’s a very different language when you say access to abortion,” Anna Sledzinska-Simon, a law professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland told The New York Times. “The French are calling it by its name — that’s crucial,” she added, highlighting the significance of the move.

However, Mathilde Philip-Gay, a law professor and a specialist in French and American constitutional law warned against easing pressure on legislators to safeguard women’s rights in the wake of far-right parties gaining political influence around the world.

“It may not be an issue in France, where a majority of people support abortion,” she told the Associated Press. “But those same people may one day vote for a far-right government, and what happened in the U.S. can happen elsewhere in Europe, including in France.”

Paris, France:

French lawmakers are expected Monday to anchor the right to abortion in the country’s constitution, in a global first that has garnered overwhelming public support.

A congress of both houses of parliament in Versailles starting at 3:30 pm (1430 GMT) should find the three-fifths majority needed for the change after it overcame initial resistance in the right-leaning Senate.

If congress approves the move, France will become the only country in the world to clearly protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its basic law.

President Emmanuel Macron pledged last year to include enshrine abortion — legal in France since 1975 — in the constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing states to ban or curtail it.

France’s lower-house National Assembly in January overwhelmingly approved making abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in the constitution, followed by the Senate on Wednesday.

The bill is now expected to clear the final hurdle of a combined vote of both chambers when they gather for a rare joint session at the former royal residence of the Palace of Versailles.

Few expect any difficulty finding the needed supermajority after the three-fifths mark was largely exceeded in both previous ballots.

When political campaigning began in earnest in 1971, “we could never have imagined that the right to abortion would one day be written into the constitution,” Claudine Monteil, head of the Femmes Monde (Women in the World) association, told AFP.

Monteil was the youngest signatory to “Manifesto of the 343”, a 1971 French petition signed by 343 women who admitted to having illegally ended a pregnancy, along with up to 800,000 of their compatriots each year.

‘Woke us up’

Abortion was legalised in France in 1975 in a law championed by health minister Simone Veil, a women’s rights icon granted the rare honour of burial at the Pantheon after her death in 2018.

But another leading feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, had told Monteil the year before that “all it will take is a political, economic or religious crisis for women’s rights to be called into question”, she recalled.

In that sense, “the behaviour of the US Supreme Court did women all around the world a favour, because it woke us up”, Monteil said.

Leah Hoctor, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said France could offer “the first explicit broad constitutional provision of its kind, not just in Europe, but also globally”.

Chile included the right to elective abortion in a draft for a new progressive constitution in 2022, but voters rejected the text in a referendum.

Some countries allude to the right.

Cuba’s constitution guarantees women’s “reproductive and sexual rights”.

And several Balkan states have inherited versions of former Yugoslavia’s 1974 constitution that said it was a human right to “decide on the birth of children”.

Other states explicitly mention abortion in their constitution, but only allow it in specific circumstances, Hoctor said.

In Kenya, for example, the constitution says “abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law”.

Making history?

Most members of the French public support the move to give the right extra protection.

A November 2022 survey by French polling group IFOP found that 86 percent of French people supported inscribing it in the constitution.

Left-wing and centrist politicians have welcomed the change, while right-wing senators in private have said they felt under pressure to give it a green light.

One said her daughters would “no longer come for Christmas” if she opposed the move.

Macron on Wednesday celebrated what he called the Senate’s “decisive step” and immediately called for the parliamentary congress on Monday.

The last time one was called to change the constitution was in 2008, when lawmakers only just approved wide-sweeping reforms under former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Those changes included limiting a president’s time in office to two terms, as well as better safeguards for press independence and freedom.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)