Forty years after passing abortion laws, France reaffirms all women’s right to abortion!

Simone Veil addresses French National Assembly, November 26, 1974

Forty years ago, on November 26^th, 1974 France’s Parliament adopted Simone Veil’s bill to guarantee access to legal abortion for women under certain restrictions. Simone Veil emphasized at the time that abortion was a hypocritical social issue since only the poorer women were penalized by the restrictions. These restrictions have since been removed to become a right for all women of all ages and free of charge in France. This past Wednesday, November 26^th 2014, the French Parliament adopted a resolution to reaffirm the fundamental right to abortion for all women in France, in Europe and in the world.

The resolution added that women had fundamental right to control over their own bodies, as it is the condition for the construction of real equality between women and men and for a society of progress. The resolution also included the importance of sexual education and free access to contraception and abortion. Finally, the resolution expressed France’s European as well as international engagement for universal access to family planning.

Forty years ago there were only 9 women in the Parliament and 481 men. Simone Veil admitted recently that she had not imagined at the time, the hatred that her law was going to generate. Last Wednesday, only 7 representatives voted against the resolution. Though still too many, this is significant progress from the 189 representatives who voted against it in 1974.

Nonetheless, before the presentation of the resolution, the anti abortion lobby led by the Foundation Lejeune asked their followers to flood targeted center, right and extreme right representatives with a sample email. It contained twenty words with explicit phrases such as he/she “would not comprehend that a national representative would celebrate as a right, an attack on human life.” The Foundation Lejeune says that there is no support within the United Nations framework to claim the right to abortion; therefore they contest the universal right of women to control over their own bodies.

In the current context of worldwide restrictions on women’s rights, the French Family Planning did not want to take any risk and so organized along with other groups a response to these attacks, asking women and men to voice their support for access to reproductive services. They also reminded the representatives that clandestine abortions result in 8 million women being seriously injured, with 47 000 dying every year in the world. Forty years ago, women went en masse to the parliament to support Veil’s bill; this time they used the Internet.

This resolution signals that rights for women have to be reaffirmed over and over, especially in a more conservative Europe and world pressed by neoliberal politics that target women and the poor. The current trend is to reconfigure passed victories as we see happening in the United States, in Spain, in Italy, in the UK and the list is long. Even in France where the resolution was passed, restructuration of the health care services demanded by austerity measures are endangering access to such reproductive services. All this goes hand in hand with an increase of violence against women.

At least, this resolution institutionalized the significance of women’s reproductive rights despite the constant attacks, and that in itself is a good and important political initiative!

(Photo Credit: French Government)