(LifeSiteNews) — Emmanuel Macron has resolved to enshrine the “right” to abortion in the French constitution by next year, following a resolution not to follow in the U.S.’s footsteps after it abolished the so-called national “right” to the lethal act.
The president of France announced on Sunday that a draft of the constitutional law permanently legalizing abortion will be reviewed by the Council of Ministers by the end of the year.
“In 2024, women’s freedom to have an abortion will be irreversible,” wrote Macron on X.
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Revising France’s constitution requires both houses of the French Parliament to adopt an amendment before it is approved either through a simple majority referendum or by at least three-fifths of both houses of parliament.
According to The Guardian, in order to avoid a referendum, Macron’s government presented a bill in place of one originating from lawmakers, which means Macron “can convene a special congress of both houses.”
On March 8, International Women’s Day, Macron vowed France would secure a constitutional “right” to abortion after the U.S. overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision.
“A universal message of solidarity to all women who today see this right violated: France will engrave in its Constitution the freedom of women to have recourse to abortion,” Macron tweeted at the time.
Last year, France’s National Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution to ensure “the right to voluntarily end a pregnancy” before it was approved by the Senate in February.
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Leftist and centrist politicians in France had been agitating for a constitutional “right” to abortion since the U.S. Dobbs decision. Shortly after the pro-life victory, France’s newly elected speaker of the National Assembly, Yael Braun-Pivet, ironically decried Dobbs as a “brutal” decision and called it a “stark reminder to remain vigilant.”
“It is my conviction as a woman today that we need to be the watchdog so that it stays in place forever,” she told legislators.
Abortion was legalized in France in 1975 and is now permitted until 14 weeks’ gestation.
A poll found last year that 83 percent of French citizens favor legal abortion, a “much higher” portion than those who did about 30 years ago. The vast majority of these respondents, 78 percent, believe access to abortion should be unrestricted.
A Pew survey released last summer covering 24 primarily advanced nations, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, Japan, and more, found that overall, 71% of respondents thought abortion should be legal “in all or most cases,” with just 27% taking the opposite view.
The poll found a strong correlation between a population’s religiosity and its opposition to abortion. Interestingly, while in most countries a lower per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) correlated with a lower tolerance for abortion, the United States was an outlier: Americans have the highest per capita GDP of the countries surveyed but were among the most likely to say religion is important to them and among the least likely of the high-income countries to favor legal abortion.