France Becomes First Country to Guarantee a Constitutional Right to Abortion

In a historic vote, French lawmakers have overwhelmingly approved a bill enshrining the right to abortion in the country’s constitution, making it the only country so far to explicitly guarantee a constitutional right to abortion.

The amendment, which refers to abortion as a “guaranteed freedom,” was approved March 4 in a 780-72 vote during a special joint session in the Palace of Versailles.

“Today’s vote by French lawmakers is highly significant,” said Leah Hoctor, the Center for Reproductive Rights’ Vice President for Europe. “It means that a guaranteed freedom to decide to have an abortion will be enshrined in the French constitution. Such an explicit constitutional guarantee for abortion freedoms will be the first of its kind, not just in Europe, but globally.”

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron had pledged to make abortion a constitutional right in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the half-century-old right to abortion. The decision is also referenced in the bill’s introduction, which points out that in many countries, “there are currents of opinion that seek to hinder at any cost the freedom of women to terminate their pregnancy if they wish.”

“What happened in the U.S. can happen elsewhere in Europe, including in France,” Mathilde Philip-Gay, a law professor and a specialist in French and American constitutional law, told AP News.

Abortion enjoys wide support in France, where it has been legal since 1975. A recent survey from the French polling company IFOP showed that more than 80% of the French public supports abortion rights and that a solid majority had favored enshrining it in the constitution.

The new amendment was formally inscribed into the French constitution at a public ceremony on March 8, International Women’s Day.

The amendment represents “a promise for all women who fight all over the world for the right to have autonomy over their bodies—in Argentina, in the United States, in Andorra, in Italy, in Hungary, in Poland,” lawmaker Mathilde Panot, who introduced the bill in France’s National Assembly, told the Washington Post. “This vote today tells them: Your struggle is ours; this victory is yours.”

Read more:

• “France enshrines abortion as a constitutional right in historic vote,”France24, 03.04.24