France has become the first country in the world to protect the right to abortion in its constitution.
A bill to enshrine women’s right to an abortion passed today after a historic vote in a joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles.
The measure was promised by President Emmanuel Macron following a rollback of abortion rights in court rulings in the United States.
Mr Macron’s government wanted Article 34 of the French constitution amended to specify that ‘the law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed.’
None of France’s major political parties represented in parliament has questioned the right to abortion, which was decriminalised in France in 1975.
The government argued in its introduction to the bill that the right to abortion is threatened in the United States, where the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned a 50-year-old ruling that used to guarantee it.
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