Two months after its adoption at an overwhelming majority at the Assembly, the proposal for a constitutional law on abortion is examined Wednesday, in uncertainty, in the Senate where the right and the center dominate.
by Jeremiah Lamothe and Mariama Darame
After overcoming the divisions of the National Assembly, the constitutionalization of the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) cross the stage of the Senate?
Adopted to an overwhelming majority by deputies on November 24, 2022, the constitutional bill carried out by rebellious France (LFI) and taken up by socialist senators must now be examined, Wednesday 1
This time, the senators will have to position themselves on a text with a single article whose content had been fiercely discussed at first reading in the National Assembly before the elected officials of the new Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nuts) and the presidential coalition agree on the following formulation inserted in article 66 of the Constitution: “The law guarantees effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary pregnancy interruption.” Despite the initial ambition From parliamentarians on the left, the deputies have dismissed any reference to contraception to achieve more consensual writing capable of satisfying senators. A final adoption of this constitutional bill requires a vote in the same terms by the two chambers, before being subject to a referendum.
“Despite the fact that this is a big step, this is only a first step,” warned the president (renaissance) of the law commission in the assembly national, Sacha Houlié.
“Why not imagine an alchemy as positive as that which took place in the Assembly?”, Hopefully the president of the Socialist group in the Senate, Patrick Kanner, who decided to take up the text “Insoumis “As part of the parliamentary niche of his group. “It would be a considerable progress to engrave in the marble of the constitution this essential right”, he pleads.
“a false good idea”
But, in a Senate where the elected officials of the Les Républicains (LR) party by Bruno Retailleau and the centrist union of Hervé Marseille hold the absolute majority, the annoyances are numerous for the left. The High Assembly Law Commission also rejected the text on Wednesday, January 25. “Even if we hear the will of public opinion, the inscription of abortion in the Constitution seems to us to be a false good idea”, explains the rapporteur (LR) of the text, Agnès Canayer; According to the senator from Seine-Maritime, less than her registration in the fundamental law, the effectiveness of abortion passes rather “through the strengthening of the means of family planning, the education of young people or additional means to fight against deserts medical “.
You have 52.82% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.