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Lawmakers in the French parliament are set to vote on Thursday to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution, in response to recent changes in the United States and Poland.
Members of parliament from the left-wing Independence party and the ruling centrist coalition agreed on the wording of the new terms on Thursday, ahead of a larger vote later in the day.
“The law guarantees effective and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy,” reads the proposed constitutional supplement to Article 66.
The initiative was fueled by an explosive U.S. Supreme Court decision this year that overturned Americans’ right to terminate proceedings nationwide.
In Europe, Poland’s conservative government has also severely restricted abortion rights.
French Unbowed MP Mathilde Panot said the move was necessary in France to “protect itself from going backwards”.
In a speech to parliament, she quoted the late French author and women’s rights activist Simone de Beauvoir.
“We just need a political, economic or religious crisis for women’s rights to be called into question,” she said.
The deal is a rare example of cooperation between the far-left French Unyielding and centrist allies of President Emmanuel Macron in a hung and often rowdy National Assembly.
Previous attempts to enshrine abortion and contraceptive rights in the constitution were rejected by the conservative-dominated Senate in October.
The new attempt, if approved by the House of Commons, would also need to be approved in the Senate, which would then have to be voted on in a national referendum.
Many conservative and Catholic politicians have expressed their misgivings that this is unnecessary given the legal protections already in place.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said in a statement this week: “It seems entirely inappropriate to open a debate that, while it exists in the United States, does not exist in France.”
“No political group is thinking about questioning access to abortion,” she said.
In 1974, French health minister Simone Veil supported a law legalizing abortion. After the feminist icon died in 2018, she was buried in the Pantheon by Macron in a rare honor.
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