By the Workers’ Communist Party of France (PCOF) | March 5, 2024 | Translated from French—

On March 4, the French Congress voted on the single article introducing abortion into the constitution.

While women, feminist organizations and all those who fight for the right to abortion appreciate this measure as recognition of their struggle, its inclusion in the constitution is merely symbolic.

The text explicitly enshrines in the constitution “the freedom guaranteed to women to have recourse to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy.” This means that when it is published, on March 8, it will not be possible, without changing the Constitution, to prohibit recourse to abortion, as the US Supreme Court did when it struck down the ruling that guaranteed access to abortion at federal level.

Guaranteeing freedom of abortion does not mean enshrining the right to abortion in the constitution.

Many deputies and senators from the right, the far right and the center would have voted against enshrining this right in the Constitution. Guaranteed freedom is the compromise formula that enabled Congress to vote in favor.

What’s more, like all rights and freedoms guaranteed by law or the Constitution, the question is how to exercise them.

This is where the battle is far from won. Doctors can already invoke the “conscience clause” to refuse to perform abortions, and midwives are still not authorized to do so. Numerous hospital services dedicated to abortion have been closed down (abortion centers, small maternity units), particularly in “medical desert” areas for working-class people, in some large cities and in the countryside. Associations that provide information on contraception and abortion have been hit by cuts in subsidies.

These are the areas where the fight will continue.

Categories: France, International, Women