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00:00Today marks 50 years since the passing of a law that would make abortion legal in France.
00:05The then Minister for Health, Simone Veil, battled to make the law a reality in the face of stiff opposition.
00:11Fifty years on, the right to abortion is now enshrined in the French Constitution.
00:16Emily Boyle and Sophie Semay report.
00:20On the 26th of November,
00:221974, Simone Veil took the stand in the National Assembly to defend her bill
00:29legalising the termination of pregnancy.
00:32No woman chooses abortion lightly. Just listen to women.
00:37The National Assembly was far from convinced of her cause.
00:41Opposition from the political right was fierce, but Simone Veil held firm,
00:46thanks to the unlikely support of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who was personally opposed to the law and that of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
00:54Against all odds, and after three days and two nights of debate,
01:00the law was provisionally adopted for five years on the 17th of January 1975.
01:08Then in December 1979,
01:11the right to have an abortion was finally made permanent, but women's fight did not end there.
01:17For 50 years, they worked tirelessly to defend their rights and to make access to abortion more flexible.
01:24In 1983, the cost of abortion care was covered by the French public health system.
01:30The obligatory seven-day reflection period was abolished in 2016.
01:35Six years later, the gestational limit for abortions was extended from 12 to 14 weeks.
01:42On the 8th of March 2024, France became the first country in the world to enshrine a woman's right to abortion in its Constitution.
01:55And joining me now is Kaye Yoshida, who is a senior legal advisor at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
02:01Good afternoon, Kaye.
02:03We are 50 years on from a historic vote that legalized abortion in France,
02:08and there's been a lot of work done since then to further liberalize France's laws.
02:12This does seem to be a constant battle. How would you describe the current state of abortion rights around the world?
02:19Hi, good afternoon.
02:21The current state of abortion rights around the world is a progressive trend towards liberalizing abortion laws,
02:29just like in France in the past 30 years, we've seen 60 countries liberalize their abortion laws.
02:36For example, in Africa, there's been 12 countries in that continent that have removed total bans on abortion.
02:43And we can see this trend accelerating as well in the last 10 years in Europe, 22 countries have have liberalized their laws.
02:50But France is the first country in the world, as your report indicates, to explicitly enshrine the right to abortion in its Constitution.
02:58And which countries have made the most significant progress, in your view, in securing abortion rights?
03:03And what can we learn from their policies?
03:06Well, I think, you know, last year, France made that historic step to enshrining abortion as a constitutional right explicitly.
03:15Other countries have implicitly recognized this and through constitutional court decisions, like in Colombia recently.
03:21But France is the first country to do that.
03:24And other countries are now looking at France's model, for example, Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden just announced two days ago that it was also considering this.
03:35And I think another really important aspect of abortion law reform is decriminalizing abortion.
03:43Many, many countries still criminalize abortion.
03:47And it's only Canada, for example, who have completely decriminalized abortion or other countries that are close to it, like Australia, Iceland, New Zealand.
03:57And it's not all progress, of course, there are some there is some backtracking.
04:02What are some of the most significant setbacks in abortion rights in recent years?
04:08Well, we've seen four countries make real setbacks in recent years in Nicaragua, Poland, El Salvador and the U.S.
04:18And it's worth just pausing on the U.S., I think, for a second, because the Dobbs decisions overturned 50 years of constitutional abortion rights protection in the U.S.
04:29And that has led to 16 states in the U.S. basically banning abortion there.
04:38And that's led to a public health crisis and even deaths.
04:43And closer to France, we've also seen real setbacks in England and Wales, for example, where the law that was historically on the books of the criminalization of abortion is now being used to investigate and prosecute women.
04:58There's 50 to 60 women who are currently under investigation for abortion related offenses there.
05:05And how have these recent legal changes, such as the overturning of Roe versus Wade in the U.S. that you mentioned, affected the global conversation around abortion rights?
05:14Are there ripple effects?
05:17Yes, there are ripple effects.
05:19But I think one of the effects of the Dobbs decision, which has been condemned by U.N. experts and other human rights experts, is the galvanized change.
05:31So we've seen the constitutional change in France, but we've also seen many European countries making legal changes or considering legal changes.
05:43For example, recently in Germany and Scotland to secure abortion rights.
05:49And I think people in countries around the world have realized that these protections must be further enshrined in law.
06:00Otherwise, setbacks can happen.
06:02Having said that, there are other possible ripple effects that may come.
06:07I think that we're going to see further restrictions on abortion rights in the U.S.
06:14And things like an expanded global gag rule could affect sexual and reproductive rights across the world.
06:21Thank you very much for that, Kei Yoshida, Senior Legal Advisor at the Center for Reproductive Rights.