The French government’s pioneering push to become the first country in the world to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution got a huge boost Wednesday with lawmakers in the right-dominated Senate voting to inscribe abortion as a “guaranteed freedom,” reports The Washington Post.
The bill still faces one final test: whether it can secure the backing of three-fifths of lawmakers from both houses of parliament in a special congress on Monday at Versailles.
But the extent of support in the Senate, with 267 votes in favor and 50 against, following the overwhelming endorsement in the National Assembly last month, had government officials and abortion rights activists claiming victory.
“This evening, the Senate wrote a new page in women’s rights. This vote is historic,” minister of justice Éric Dupond-Moretti said. “We will be the first country in the world to enshrine in the Constitution this freedom for women to control their bodies. This vote, basically, reiterates to those who do not yet know that the women of our country are free. This vote reiterates the extent to which we are all attached to this freedom.”
The proposed change to France’s constitution is a direct reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The plain-language introduction of the French bill didn’t hesitate to point to events in the United States as the catalyst.