The entry of abortion into the Constitution, a “historic moment” | EUROtoday

Usually, the set up of a large display on the Place du Trocadéro, in Paris, permits high-level sporting competitions to be seen. This Monday, March 5 afternoon, on the Human Rights sq., an occasion of a very totally different nature will be capable of be adopted dwell: the vote, by Parliament assembly in Congress, of the constitutional invoice establishing the voluntary termination of being pregnant (abortion) within the Constitution. For the Women's Foundation and the organizing feminist associations, in partnership with the Paris city corridor, it’s a query of celebrating a “festive and historical event”.

A “historical moment”. The expression has been on everybody's lips because the adoption, Wednesday February 28 within the Senate, of this constitutional invoice, paving the best way for the assembly of Congress. Historian Christine Bard, a specialist within the historical past of ladies and gender, observes that “cIt’s not that frequent that we qualify as a historic moment”. Either “a moment that we feel is very important and which has a strong symbolic impact. » Does the entry of abortion into the Constitution deserve this term? The historian agrees, adding mischievously: “I had never seen such cries of joy from women in the Senate, that alone is historic. »

In the present case, the historical dimension “can be measured at several levels”, in accordance with Bibia Pavard, additionally a historian of feminism. “This is the argument put forward in the debates by the parliamentarians themselves, who made it a way of supporting this constitutionalization; several senators also invoked history in their interventions, anchoring this moment in the long history of feminist struggles and the fight for abortion since the Veil law of 1974 [qui dépénalisa l’IVG] “.

“A fundamental freedom”

A continuity claimed by Violaine Lucas, the president of the Choisir la cause des femmes association, founded by Gisèle Halimi, who welcomes “a great victory, powerful, with high symbolic significance”, as well as an important message addressed to anti-choice movements on a European scale.

During parliamentary debates, “expressed the thought of ​​a consensus round the truth that abortion was a elementary freedom, and extra broadly assist for the proper of ladies to get rid of their our bodies, which Simone Veil may by no means have mentioned in 1974notes Bibia Pavard. This feminist terminology which appeared radical within the Seventies is right now supported by establishments. »

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