The French Parliament approved this Wednesday the extension from the current twelve weeks to fourteen the legal term to abort, an extension that constituted the most outstanding point of the bill promoted to reinforce the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.
The National Assembly definitively adopted the measure with 135 votes in favor and 47 against.
The bill had been presented in August 2020 by the deputy of the Ecology, Democracy and Solidarity (EDS) group Albane Gaillot, a former member of the government party La República en Marcha (LREM).
“Today is an important day for sexual and reproductive health and an important day for women’s health,” said the French Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, for whom the extension of the deadline reflects the will of the Executive to move towards greater “pragmatism and equality”.
The bill admits that, although late-term abortions represent a “tiny part” of those carried out in France, each year there are between 3,000 and 5,000 women who travel abroad to have an abortion because they have exceeded the legal term.
Gaillot recalled that abortion without restrictions is legal up to fourteen weeks of gestation in countries like Spain and Austria, up to 18 in Sweden, 22 in the Netherlands and even 24 in the United Kingdom.
“These examples reflect that no medical or scientific argument justifies opposing the extension of the terms,” the deputy had maintained in the presentation of her proposal, with which she intended to improve the “effectiveness” of the right to abortion.
The legalization of abortion was enacted in France in 1975. The so-called “Veil law”, having been promoted by the former French conservative minister and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps Simone Veil, sought to put an end to the nearly 300,000 clandestine abortions that were practiced then in the country.
The bill made it clear that “despite the many advances made since its entry into force, access to and guarantees for abortion must still be improved” in France, where from the time a consultation is requested until the procedure is carried out, on average 7.4 days.
In 2020 in France, according to an official report from the DREES Statistics Directorate released last September, 222,000 voluntary abortions were performed, which represented a drop of 4% compared to 2019, the year in which the highest figure was reached since 1990, mainly by young people between 20 and 29 years old. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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