France enshrines abortion as a constitutional right, a global first

France has become the first country in the world to guarantee the right to terminate pregnancies in its fundamental laws.

This provision was promised by President Emmanuel Macron last year, in response to actions by the Supreme Court of the USA, which, after nearly half a century, overturned the nationwide right to abortion, thereby allowing states to regulate the issue independently.

Abortion has been legal in France since 1975, following a political campaign for its legalization that began in 1971.

“We could never have imagined that the right to abortion would one day be written into the constitution,” stated Claudine Monteil, head of the association "Women in the World," in an interview with AFP.

Monteil was the youngest medic involved in the "Manifesto 343," a French petition from 1971, signed by 343 women, who each confessed to having an illegal abortion.

Simone de Beauvoir, the renowned feminist, once told Monteil, "All it takes is a political, economic, or religious crisis for women's rights to be questioned." The decision of the Supreme Court of the USA acted as such an alarm clock for women.

Leah Hoctor from the Center for Reproductive Rights stated that France could provide "the first of its kind clear, broad constitutional provision not only in Europe but also in the world."

In Chile, the progressive constitution proposed in 2022 firstly enshrined planned abortion, but its project was rejected in a referendum. Meanwhile, Cuba's constitution broadly guarantees "reproductive and sexual rights" for women.

Some Balkan countries have maintained the constitution of the former Yugoslavia, which declares that "deciding about the birth of children" is a human right.

In Kenya, “abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained healthcare worker, there is a need for immediate treatment or the life or health of the mother is at risk, or if permitted by any other written law."

In a poll in November 2022, 86 percent of French people supported introducing the right to abortion into the constitution.