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French lawmakers propose bill to inscribe abortion rights in constitution

Constitutional law would cement abortion rights for future generations, says member of parliament, following US Supreme Court's ruling on the issue in US. 

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

A group of lawmakers from the French president’s party will propose a bill to inscribe abortion rights into the country’s constitution, according to a statement by two members of parliament on Saturday, reports The Guardian.

The move comes after the US supreme court overturned a 50-year-old ruling and stripped women’s constitutional protections for abortion.

The right to abortion in France is already inscribed in a 1975 law relating to the voluntary termination of pregnancy within the legal framework that decriminalised abortion.

A constitutional law will cement abortion rights for future generations, said Marie-Pierre Rixain, a member of parliament and of Emmanuel Macron’s The Republic on the Move party.

“What happened elsewhere must not happen in France,” Rixain said.

The bill will include a provision that would make it “impossible to deprive a person of the right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy”, according to the statement, released by two members of the National Assembly, France’s most powerful house of parliament.

Read more of this report from The Guardian.