Abortion: we explain what Marine Le Pen's surprise amendment on abortion hides

The telenovela continues: a few days after the discussion on the proposal to constitutionalize the right to abortion presented by France Insoumise, the National Gathering comes out of the woods with an amendment to protect the right to abortion…

This is the kind of news we didn’t expect: France Inter revealed this Monday November 21 that Marine Le Pen, president of the group of the National Gathering at the National Assembly, presented to amendment on voluntary termination of pregnancy in order to incorporate the articles of the public health code referred to in the preamble to the Constitution.

Yes, this same Marine Le Pen who declared on November 13 that she did not understand “to what danger must this request for constitutionalization have to respond” having emerged from the revocation of Roe v Wade in the United States. A breakthrough, over a flat week. When we told you it was a soap opera, it was precisely because we didn’t anticipate this kind of twist.

Behind the amendment, a political strategy to demonize the image of the RN

So is this a trend reversal? A way to make RN MPs forget who have held openly anti-abortion positions? Or just a strategy to differentiate itself from Renaissance or France insoumise and their respective constitutional bills that are about to be examined? “What Insoumi and the majority are proposing is not to protect the Veil law,” he brushed off RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy with the back of his hand FranceInfo.

With this amendment, the member intends “respond to those who are concerned about a questioning of access to abortion in our country but also to those who are concerned about the consequences of the proposed formulation (further lengthening or even disappearance of the concept of delay and risk on the conscience clause that exists today for health personnel). » Also a good way to counter those who regularly recall his remarks on the “comfort abortion”. With this amendment, Marine Le Pen he wants to show that he is not indifferent to the subjector even fundamentally opposed to abortion.

Will the amendment pass? In the end, that’s not really the problem. Above all, it allows the RN to try to distance itself from its image as an anti-abortion party, while maintaining with this amendment its opposition to further modifying the terms for access to abortion – modified in January 2022 to go from 12 to 14 weeks – as well as the questioning of the conscience clause.