After sometimes stormy debates, the bill “aimed at strengthening the right to abortion” was voted at second reading at the meeting on Tuesday. Its definitive adoption under the current legislature remains uncertain.
Le Monde with AFP
The National Assembly approved again on Tuesday, November 30, the extension of the legal deadline for a voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVG) at 14 weeks of pregnancy instead of 12. Members nevertheless refused to remove the specific consciousness clause of doctors.
The bill “aimed at strengthening the right to abortion”, examined at the end of the evening by 79 votes to 36 and 8 abstentions, after often heavy debates. The text had been adopted in October 2020 at the Assembly before being rejected in the Senate, and the continuation of its legislative care and therefore its final adoption under the current legislature remain uncertain.
The government, for its part, has not spoken, emitting only a “notice of wisdom” on all the provisions of the text, without firm commitment to have it examined again in the Senate. The Minister of Health Olivier Véran, a training physician, however, said favorable to the extension of the legal deadline.
“The act of IVG changes in nature”
The opponents of the measure multiplied the interventions to emphasize, like Moselle Fabien di Filippo (Republicans, LR), with the growth of the fetus between 12 and 14 weeks “the act of IVG Change of nature “, with” gynecological consequences that can be serious “. Several right-wing MPs have pleaded for better women’s access to IVG within the current time, rather than extension.
The co-rapporteur Albane Gaillot (non-registered, ex-LRM) replied that this measure was “not a feminist activist” but was inspired by “field meetings”. “The subject is not technical, the subject is the right of women to have their bodies,” she argued.
MEPs also removed the period of forty-eight hours between psychosocial maintenance and the collection of consent to an IVG, a provision that caused new clashes. “There is no damage to freedom of choice. We do not remove the possibility of reflection for those who wish,” pleaded the Socialist co-rapporteur Marie-Noëlle Battisttel. Conversely, Philippe Gosselin (LR) supported this “serenity deadline, this time of reversal” and estimated that by removing it “we move away from the spirit and the letter” of the law Veil establishing the right to abortion.
Another adopted provision allows the extension of the jurisdiction of midwives, already authorized to practice drugs, surgical IVGs.
One point for opponents of the text
The opponents of the text nevertheless managed to score a point by passing the amendments lr videring of its substance Article 2 of the bill, which made the clause of consciousness of the doctors specific to the IVG, all By maintaining their general consciousness clause for any medical act on which they are opposed.
This IVG-specific consciousness clause “has only the only impact of stigmatizing” women wishing to abort, estimated Annie Hathelier (Group Act, Allied of the majority). But on the right Patrick Hetzel (LR) has developed that the two clauses were not identical: regulation therefore subject to the Government for the “General” clause, legislative thus engraved in the law for the “specific” clause. “Scratching it with a feather trait is very disturbing for freedoms,” he said.
This deletion “is massively disputed by the profession” and helps to make IVG an “anodin act”, “said Emmanuelle Ménard (not registered, close to the RN). Mr. Véran himself has been reserved on this measure: “It is not excluded that there is a misinterpretation of this deletion [of the specific clause] that can sow the disorder in the medical community”, he said.