Why France has made abortion a constitutional right

Francewhich , signed the declaration of the rights of man in 1789, has not traditionally been at the forefront of securing the rights of women. They had to wait until 1944 to win the vote, 16 years after British women. France legalised abortion only in 1975. On March 4th, however, when the French parliament voted to make abortion a constitutional right, it became the first country to do so explicitly. “The place of women has changed because France has changed,” declared Yaël Braun-Pivet, the first female head of the National Assembly, who presided over the vote. That evening the Eiffel Tower was lit up with the words “My body, my choice”.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.