Macron vows to enshrine women’s rights to abortion in French Constitution from 2024
- Abortion in France was decriminalised under a 1975 law, but there is nothing in the constitution to guarantee abortion rights
- Rollback of rights in the US last year propelled France towards unconditionally guaranteeing them for French women from 2024
France’s President Emmanuel Macron promised on Sunday to enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion in the country’s Constitution by next year.
The president said on X, formerly Twitter, that a bill making this possible would be presented to his cabinet by the end of this year so that “in 2024, the freedom of women to have an abortion will be irreversible”.
Abortion in France was decriminalised under a 1975 law, but there is nothing in the constitution that would guarantee abortion rights.
It was the rollback of abortion rights in the United States after the US Supreme Court overturned a 50-year-old ruling last year and stripped women’s constitutional protections for abortion that propelled France on a path toward unconditionally guaranteeing such rights.
Macron, honouring feminist Gisele Halimi in March, said he wanted to change the constitution in order “to enshrine the freedom of women to have an abortion, to solemnly ensure that nothing can stop or undo what will be irreversible.”