How US rollback inspired France to make abortion consitutional right
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00:00 Now that debate in the United States over women's bodies and women's choices is having an impact
00:05 here in France. Today the Senate is voting on a bill that is designed to enshrine the right to
00:11 abortion in the French constitution even though it's been legal here since 1974. President Macron
00:18 promising to do that following the rollback on abortion rights in the United States. For some
00:23 analysis on this Annette Young joins me now she's the host of the 51% show here on France 24 and
00:29 Annette clearly then there is a direct link between what we're seeing in the United States regarding
00:34 reproductive rights and this crucial vote tonight here in Paris. Indeed it was a wake-up call for
00:40 everybody Nadia and I absolutely there's a very direct line between what happened in Washington
00:45 DC in June 2022 and within weeks we had the French president saying that he would inscribe the right
00:54 to enshrine abortion rights which as you say has been legal since 1974 into the constitution. Now
01:00 it came very quickly after that decision where of course the Supreme Court overturned the half
01:05 century old right to the procedure which allowed states to ban or curtail as a result of rolling
01:14 back this procedure allowing states to ban or curtail abortion. Now if this is passed it will
01:20 mean that France will become the first ever nation to protect abortion rights it's constitution which
01:25 is a massive move it really is and just some statistics for you last year 234 000 abortions
01:33 were carried out in this country which is a fairly sizable figure. Now in the bill's introduction
01:41 it even writes about what happened in the US and it says demise of reproductive rights should not
01:49 be seen as just being limited to the US. There are certain currents of opinion here in Europe
01:55 but the bill's introduction says that is seeking to hinder at any cost the freedom of women to
02:00 terminate their pregnancy if they wish. But interesting at the same time President Macron
02:07 also raised eyebrows last month when he talked about his concern about the ever lower fertility
02:15 fertility rates in France. Having said that France has the highest fertility rate in the EU but he
02:21 more than raised a number of eyebrows among French feminists by saying it was necessary to revive the
02:28 country's declining birth rate to the point that one a woman by the name of Cecile Simmons from the
02:34 French Institute for Strategic Dialogue said such comments are emboldening the country's anti-abortion
02:42 movement by resorting to fear-mongering among the decline or rather over the declining birth rate.
02:49 But you know again having said that we have to point out that France still has the highest birth
02:54 rate of all in Europe. And as you say if this bill does get passed tonight it would be quite a big
03:01 deal for France Annette. Do we know though how the vote's going to go? At this stage it's looking
03:07 good in the sense that a Senate committee early in the day rejected motions from the right to amend
03:12 the text of the proposed revision as a possible indicator that looks like that vote is indeed
03:18 going to be positive. But there are some politicians who've expressed concerns in particular regarding
03:24 the conscious clause or conscience clause rather for doctors who refuse to perform abortions
03:32 without the constitutional council being able to oppose it if the bill passes. And this is the
03:37 you know the concern of some also on the pro-choice side that if you're leaving it up to doctors
03:43 to indicate whether they're going to do it or not in terms of their own personal views there are a
03:48 number of areas in France particularly in the rural areas who could be left without access to
03:54 abortion services. Even if Senate leaders are against Macron's proposal in private several
04:02 right-wing senators have said that they certainly are under quite a bit of pressure to approve it.
04:07 And we've sort of had some responses particularly the President of the Senate however, Gérard
04:15 Lachais, who told French radio last month that abortion is not under threat in the country but
04:21 I think a constitution shouldn't be a catalogue of social and societal rights. So there's that
04:27 debate as well. But having said that let's not forget that more than three quarters of right-wing
04:33 Republicans in the lower house and national assembly passed the voted to accept the bill.
04:39 So the odds are that indeed it will pass tonight. And also a survey by a French polling group in
04:48 2022 found that 86 percent of French people were in favour of making abortion rights as part of
04:54 the constitution. That itself speaks volumes to politicians at the moment having said that. But
05:00 of course once it's in the constitution it's going to make it very difficult to roll things back. So
05:06 indeed the mood is at the moment that it will pass tonight.