After a winding parliamentary journey, the text was the subject of a final vote in the National Assembly this Wednesday, February 23.
A final reform, in extremis, to give a more progressive note to the macronist balance sheet. The National Assembly definitively adopted, this Wednesday, February 23, the extension of the legal period of access to abortion from 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. This proposed lawstrengthening the right to abortionalso authorizes midwives to perform instrumental abortions, removes the 48-hour reflection period for minors, and extends the period for recourse to medical abortion in the city to seven weeks.
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The law, carried by the deputy Albane Gaillot (ex-LREM, not registered), was adopted with the support of LREM by 135 votes for, 47 against and 9 abstentions.
“It’s a great victory for women and an important message for society as a whole, it’s great progress”welcomes Albane Gaillot, shortly after the vote. “This law will lift the brakes on abortion in France. It was unthinkable to allow these situations of impediment and endangerment of women to continue”, adds LREM MP Cécile Muschotti, author of a parliamentary report on the subject.
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“At a time when several countries are questioning this fundamental right of women, I am proud that France is reaffirming and expanding it”reacted the Minister of Health on Twitter.
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The text had been the subject of a long parliamentary journey and lively debates since October 2020. Its initial version provided for the removal of the conscience clause specific to abortion. This measure, highly controversial in the medical community, was finally removed from the text. A compromise found after Olivier Véran, himself a doctor, expressed his own reservations. After issuing aposition of wisdom“, the government had finally decided to support the text.
And this despite the clear position of Emmanuel Macron, who declared himself in July 2021 unfavorable to the extension of the deadline “personally “. He had confirmed his position at Figaroin November 2021, while saying “respect the freedom of parliamentarians“.
On the side of doctors, the text is not unanimous. From the first debates, the National College of Obstetrician Gynecologists (CNGOF) had warned with harsh words about the concrete reality of an abortion at 14 weeks: “to get the ossified head out of the uterus, it must be crushed with special forceps, a gesture of fetal dilaceration which is not only dangerous but which can understandably be shocking for the majority of practitioners”.
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President of the body, Professor Israel Nisand sees it as a false good solution: “I am very angry. It’s a good political move, but in reality, this law is not favorable to women. Hospitals had to be given the means to accept abortions in an emergency, but it cost moneyhe confided on Wednesday. Instead, we will continue to give appointments within four weeks to women. This will deteriorate an already fragile healthcare system.” During the vote, the deputies LR Geneviève Lévy, and UDI Valérie Six, unfavorable to the text, also deplored the lack of means given, upstream, for better access to contraception and early abortion.
In this logic of avoiding delays, the government, by decree published on February 20, however generalized a measure taken during confinement: access to medical abortions in town via teleconsultation.