All eyes are on the Luxembourg Palace. After the green light given by the National Assembly on 30 January to the inclusion of the “guaranteed freedom” for the woman to resort to abortion, the text arrives this Wednesday 28 February in the Senate for the second and penultimate step of its democratic path.
If the debates in the Upper House seemed to have started well with the first approval of the Legislative Commission in mid-February, on Monday two Republican senators presented an amendment that could ruin everything. Explanations.
How does a constitutional revision work?
To understand what is happening this Wednesday 28 February in the Chamber, we must first understand the path of a bill before its adoption. The latter consists of three crucial phases. First, a first vote in the Assembly or Senate, followed by a second vote by the other parliamentary chamber. A subtlety that is not a subtlety: the text must be voted on in exactly the same terms by both Chambers. Once these conditions are met, the text is adopted by the entire Parliament, gathered in Congress.
As regards the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution, the National Assembly has therefore opened the ball, and it is up to the Senate to decide on the same text validated by the deputies.
What does the amendment presented by Les Républicains contain?
On January 30, the National Assembly therefore approved the registration of “guaranteed freedom” the woman to resort to abortion.
As told in Huffpost, “This notion of “guaranteed freedom” was preferred to that of “right” by the government in its bill: a semantic choice to be interpreted as a compromise to encourage the vote of those elected most recalcitrant to the constitutionalization of abortion. Understand: part of the LR troops, the first group in the Senate and therefore fundamental to completing the project.
However, the amendment presented on February 26 by LR senators Bruno Retailleau and Philippe Bas aims to blow up the word “warranty” to keep only that of ” freedom “and then return to “ the version adopted by the Senate a year ago ” they discussed.
It’s this one term of ” freedom “ which was present, in February 2023, in a previous text that was difficult to adopt by the Senate. The government then chose the wording “guaranteed freedom” in the constitutional bill that he presented to the deputies. “This amendment aims to eliminate the legal uncertainties surrounding the use of the term ‘guarantee'”, writes Philippe Bas to defend this change. Word “warranty” would create an applicable law of which “we don’t know the consequences”claims the speaker of the text, Senator LR Agnès Canayer, to the Politico media.
france Info, IVG: why the Senate could delay the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution
Why is today’s vote crucial?
Clearly, if the LR amendment is adopted and the bill is voted with this modification, the text will return to the National Assembly. He will therefore have to decide on the matter again, and several gray areas remain.
On the one hand: what about the calendar? In fact, as told in Huffpost, “On Tuesday 27 February, the head of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly Sylvain Maillard informed his troops that Parliament could meet in Versailles as early as Monday 4 March” for the third phase, i.e. the adoption of the text with the two Chambers gathered in congress. But this date depends entirely on the vote of the senators, with the majority on the right. If they do not align with the Assembly, it is difficult to know when the inclusion of this fundamental right will be postponed.
Another thorn, nothing guarantees that the Assembly will be satisfied with a version of the text without the word “warranty”while the deputies had initially expressed themselves in favor of the use of the word ” right “ to abortion, a much stronger turning point. This would certainly lead to further debate and further delay the adoption of the bill.
In recent days, calls to vote in favor of the law validated by the Assembly have multiplied. On Tuesday, February 27, a petition started by the Women’s Foundation, titled “Mr. Larcher, Vote for Abortion!” », for example, collected 95,000 signatures. It is addressed directly to the president of the Senate, who last January opposed this constitutionalization on franceinfo.
Xavier Bertrand, president of Hauts-de-France, also published an article in the magazine SHE invite his political family, the Republicans, to vote for the text as it stands. And remember: according to the latest Ifop data, 81% of French people are in favor of including access to abortion in the French Constitution.
Listen to Laisse-moi kiffer, Madmoizelle’s cultural advice podcast.
Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
