HISTORICAL: This Wednesday, the Senate lifted the last obstacle to a vote in Congress on the constitutionalization of abortion. In this debate, senators played a big role.

The essential

The Senate voted this Wednesday in favor of including abortion in the Constitution in the same terms – and this is fundamental – as the National Assembly.

The Luxembourg Palace was the venue this Wednesday for major speeches by senators to defend this progress.

They marked a historic day which opens the door to another historic day, probably Monday, for Congress which must set abortion in stone.

There were women, many women, in the Senate galleries this Wednesday afternoon to follow the debates on the constitutionalization of abortion . There were women, many women, on the podium to defend this constitutional bill. Some, too, to oppose it. Ultimately, only 50 women and men, at 8 p.m., voted against this inclusion in the Constitution of women’s right to control their bodies.

A victory whose scale is surprising but which above all aroused “the emotion, the pride, the happiness, the joy” of the environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel who is approaching the outcome of “a work where everything the world told me it was impossible.” Since she was elected to the upper house in 2021, she has spearheaded the fight for the constitutionalization of abortion. This Wednesday, it is proud of all her background as a feminist activist that the senator wanted to place the crucial Senate vote in the long history of women’s rights.

“Never again the angel makers, the hangers, the needles and the dead”

“For centuries women have been mistreated, insulted, condemned in France because they had exercised a freedom, a freedom inherent to the human condition: that of choosing their life. (…) Since the manifesto of the 343, since Gisèle Halimi opened the trial of violence and patriarchal hypocrisy in Bobigny, since the founding of Mlac, thanks to the mobilization of so many women, famous and anonymous, France took a different path. The path that will lead to the Veil law and those that followed. Today’s vote is part of this great story. (…) Let us make this magnificent promise to ourselves today: never again will the angel makers, the hangers, the needles and the dead. Let’s tell our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters, you are today and forever, free to choose your lives. »

Just before the vote, and when victory was no longer in doubt, Mélanie Vogel had words for “all the senators, the deputies, all the parliamentarians” who made it possible to get to this point. But she also seemed to be addressing right-wing senators by talking about “your wives, your daughters, your nieces” who seem to have mobilized to make them change their vote. “I appreciate the fact that changing your mind and accepting it publicly is not easy,” she added, a few minutes later.

“It’s not in the United States, it’s in France”

If Mélanie Vogel and her fight were widely praised in the speeches, she needed the contribution of centrist and right-wing voices to win. In this respect, another speech, from another senator, was very striking: that of the centrist Dominique Vérien. Less lyrical than her colleague from French women and French people abroad, but no less passionate or less moved, the elected official from Yonne strived to dismantle the relativist arguments, explaining that the right to abortion is not not in danger in France.

“Recent history has shown us that even well-established liberal democracies can also go backwards. We also run the same risk because if the worst is never certain, the best is not either. (…) Family planning regularly suffers attacks on its centers, this is not in the United States, it is in France. The recent CNews affair, which equates abortion to the leading cause of death in the world, alongside tobacco and cancer, is not in the United States, it is in France. The anti-abortion sticker campaign on Parisian bicycles is not in the United States , it is in France. Let us not err on the side of naivety. » Before concluding: “In the end, if all this is only symbolic, let’s vote, we have nothing to lose. If like me you think that this protects women a little more, let’s vote, we have everything to gain. »

As the Senate voted for the constitutional bill “in accordance” with what the National Assembly voted for, that is to say in the same terms, the last obstacle to the convocation of Congress, the meeting of the two chambers of Parliament, was lifted. On Monday, 925 parliamentarians met in Versailles to add a new fundamental right to the constitution of the Fifth Republic. A new “beautiful vote”, to use the words of socialist senator Laurence Rossignol, is on the program.

Original source: https://www.20minutes.fr/politique/4078814-20240228-ivg-constitution-senatrices-republique-reconnaissante