Rallies of several hundred demonstrators each took place in France this Saturday to defend the right to abortion and support American women, after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn what many considered a given. The Supreme Court of the United States ended on June 24 the federal legal guarantee of abortion in all the country. It is now up to the 50 states to decide on abortion. Half of them, according to the Guttmacher Institute, (especially in the south and center) have already banned it or are considering doing so.
Organized at the call of the collective “Abortion in Europe – Women decide”, joined by many feminist associations, trade unions and political parties, around thirty demonstrations brought together a total of some 6,500 people in France, according to the Ministry of Interior.
“Keep your laws off my body” and other slogans
At the head of the Parisian procession, Suzy Rojtman, member of the collective “Abortion in Europe – Women decide”, evokes a “shock wave”. She fears that given “the importance of the United States in the world”, the right to abortion is regressing “everywhere” and that “countries are inspired by the United States to deny this fundamental right”. Still in Paris, where some 1,500 people marched according to the Ministry of the Interior, a 16-year-old girl, Thaïs, held up a sign “130 abortion centers have closed in 15 years” (in France, editor’s note). She worries about a “snowball effect”.
Hangers painted red at arm’s length, the demonstrators – including men and many very young women – marched singing “From New York to Paris, free and free abortion” or “The abortion, we s’ is beaten to win it, we will fight to keep it”.
“The abortion saves lives”, “Keep your laws off my body” (Take your laws off my body), “Leave the women alone for once”, could be read on the placards of the participants. Many were written in English. And also “We want abortion in the Constitution”, in reference to the bills to include this right in the French Constitution.
Major cities mobilized
In Bordeaux, the rally also numbered a few hundred people (400 according to the police, a thousand according to the organizers). “It’s not just the right to abortion but the right to freely dispose of our bodies. It is a fundamental right, which does not only concern France but women all over the world”, declares Johanna Tilché-Jean, “artist and mother”. For Nicole Blet, retired nurse and member of Family Planning in Gironde, “the law (in France: Editor’s note) on abortion has always been fragile”, as has “its application”.
In Strasbourg, more than 300 people, according to the prefecture, took the direction of the American consulate. And in Toulouse, a few dozen people, especially women, gathered under the slogan “We are proud, women, radicals and angry! “. “In France, we are not outside the world. You have to be careful, ”explains Sandra Cassagnaud, 49. French women “find more and more difficult” to be taken care of for an abortion.
“We are particularly mobilized on the question of the resources allocated to abortion centers, between the specific conscience clause that medical staff can bring into play and the overload of hospital professions”, notes in Lyon Léa Védie, one of the spokespersons of the Rhône family planning. In the procession (500 people according to the prefecture, 800 according to the organizers), demonstrators placed hangers on the ground painted red, symbols of clandestine abortions.
In Marseille, demonstrators joined the Pride March which brought together 12,000 people according to the prefecture. A regular at Pride, Philippe Murcia, 48, said he was “very worried to see a divided society, like in the United States, which is now attacking women’s rights, rights that we thought were acquired” .