French President Emmanuel Macron will oversee a ceremony in Paris today that will officially enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution.
The procedure has been legal in France since 1975, but Macron last year promised to better protect it after the US Supreme Court struck down a half-century-old right to do so in 2022, allowing some countries to ban or curtail it.
In a historic vote, MPs from both houses of parliament on Monday gave the go-ahead to make abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in the country’s landmark text, sparking celebrations among feminists.
The ceremony is being held on International Women’s Day, one year since the president promised to enshrine that right in the constitution. Thus, France becomes the first country to grant women the right to abortion in the Constitution.
The move is supported by the majority of the French public, even if some conservatives remain against it.
The French government has said it will now try to secure better safeguards in line with EU law.
“France now has to raise this fight to the European level,” its spokeswoman Priska Thevenot said on Wednesday.
“The president said in 2022 that he wants to add the right to abortion to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,” she said.
No country has so far protected the right to terminate a pregnancy so clearly in its basic text, says Leah Hoctor, of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Neil Datta, from the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, said the French move sent a strong signal, reports AFP.
