Why France has made abortion a constitutional right

The overwhelming vote by French legislators, who backed the constitutional revision by 780 votes in favour to just 72 against, was a rare moment of cross-party unity. Pushed initially by the left-wing opposition, it last week secured unexpected backing in the Senate, which is controlled by the opposition on the right.

The justice minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, spent hours there trying to win over senators. Emmanuel Macron, the centrist French president, then seized the chance to send the revision days later to a joint sitting of the lower and upper houses in Versailles, where a three-fifths majority is needed to revise the constitution. That threshold was passed by a big margin.

Some French legislators, including the head of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, had argued that it was unnecessary to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution since it was already protected by law. The constitution, argued Mr Larcher, was not a “catalogue” of social rights. There was no imminent threat to those rights. Moreover, the French are among the strongest supporters of the legal right to abortion, with 82% in favour, far ahead of the 63% in Poland and 55% in America (see chart).