French Senate wants to enshrine abortion in Constitution

That is reported by Rfi. On Wednesday, 166 Senators voted for and 152 against the proposal from the left-wing politician Mathilde Panot.

Earlier, the National Assembly had already approved the bill. It did so after it was rewritten by the centre-right politician Philippe Bas from the Les Républicains. Bas changed the wording of the proposal so that it left room for changes if the lawmaker decided to alter the conditions for abortion, CNE.news reported earlier. The amendment was to appease some critical right-wing politicians who feared that the bill would make the right to abortion unalterable. It was also to solve the negative advice from the law committee of the Senate that rejected the bill as well. The committee ruled that the proposal was “legally rambling and unbalanced.”

Despite the amendment, most Senators from the Les Républicains voted against it. They argued that including abortion in the constitution was unnecessary, as it is not threatened in France.

Now, the proposal will be sent back to the National Assembly, Rfi writes. Both houses must agree on the text, and a referendum must be held before abortion can become part of the French constitution. If that happens, France will be the first country in the world to do so.