仏、中絶の権利を憲法に明記へ　世界初

【ベルサイユＡＦＰ＝時事】仏上下両院は４日、女性が人工妊娠中絶を行う権利を憲法で保障する法案を賛成多数で承認した。世界で初めて、中絶の権利を憲法に明記する国となる。（写真は、仏パリのトロカデロ広場で、人工妊娠中絶の権利を明記する憲法改正法案の議会中継を見守る人々）
　ベルサイユ宮殿で行われた採決では賛成７８０、反対７２と、憲法改正に必要な５分の３の賛成を大幅に上回った。法案可決を受け、議員はスタンディングオベーションで歓迎した。
　エマニュエル・マクロン大統領は、「フランスの誇り」であり「普遍的なメッセージ」だと述べた。
　議場で可決を呼び掛けたガブリエル・アタル首相は、「歴史に残る一歩だ」としながら、中絶の権利は「政策決定者に翻弄（ほんろう）され」、今なお世界中で「脅かされて」いると指摘。中絶の権利を認めた判決が連邦最高裁に覆された米国や、憲法裁判所によって中絶がほぼ全面的に禁止となったポーランドなどの事例に言及した。
　フランスでは１９７５年、シモーヌ・べイユ保健相（当時）の提唱で中絶が合法化された。
　仏世論研究所による２０２２年１１月の全国調査では、憲法への中絶の権利明記を支持するとの回答は８６％に上った。
　パリ市内のトロカデロ広場では、大型スクリーンで採決の模様を見守っていた大勢の支持者の間から、可決の瞬間に歓声が上がった。
　１２歳の娘を連れた４６歳の女性は、「私たちの権利は至る所で常に脅かされ、状況は悪くなる一方なので、うれしい。（憲法に明記されることで）この権利は奪われなくなった」とし、「妊娠するのが男性だったら、（フランス革命時の）１７９２年には、憲法に（中絶の権利が）書き込まれていただろう」と話した。
　エッフェル塔には「私の体、私の選択」などのスローガンが掲げられた。国連が定める３月８日の「国際女性デー」にも、憲法改正を祝う特別式典が予定されている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/03/05-17:05）

The French parliament on Monday voted to anchor the right to abortion in the constitution, making France the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law.
A congress of both houses of parliament, gathered in a special chamber at the Palace of Versailles, easily found the three-fifths supermajority needed for the change, with 780 lawmakers in favour and 72 voting against.
Deputies applauded the change with cheers and a standing ovation.
President Emmanuel Macron described the move as French pride that had sent a universal message, and a special public ceremony is planned to celebrate the move in Paris on International Women's Day on March 8.
The Eiffel Tower was lit up in celebration after the change was passed with slogans including My Body My Choice flashing on the edifice.
This is a fundamental step... A step that will go down in history, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told the lawmakers as he urged them to pass the legislation.
He said they owed a moral debt toward all women who had suffered before the legalisation of abortion.
But Attal said the right to abort remained in danger worldwide, with our freedoms in essence threatened... at the mercy of decision makers.
In one generation, one year, one week, you can go from one thing to the opposite, he said, referring to rights reversals in the United States, Hungary and Poland.
Such joint parliamentary sessions are rare in France and called only for momentous occasions such as constitutional changes, the last of which was made in 2008.
- 'Hope and solidarity' -
Macron pledged last year to enshrine abortion -- legal in France since 1975 -- in the constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing individual American states to ban or curtail it.
The vote is of huge significance given the rollback of this essential right around the world, said Amnesty International's secretary general Agnes? Callamard, adding that it had sent a message of hope and solidarity.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a post on X, welcomed France's decision to secure women's rights and save their lives.
In January, France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, overwhelmingly approved the move with the upper house, the Senate, following suit on Wednesday.
A majority of the French public support the move to give the right to abortion extra protection, according to polls.
A November 2022 survey by French polling group IFOP found that 86 percent of French people supported inscribing it in the constitution.
Left-wing and centrist politicians have welcomed the change, while some right-wing senators have said in private they felt under pressure to give it a green light.
Several hundred abortion opponents, largely marginalised in the move for the constitutional change, protested in Versailles.
Catholic bishops meanwhile called for a day of fasting and prayer so the French could rediscover the taste for life.
Weighing in from Rome, the Vatican said there could be no 'right' to take a human life.
But hundreds of jubilant backers of the move leapt for joy at the Place du Trocadero in western Paris as they witnessed the passing of the law on a large screen set up for the occasion.
- 'Rights under threat' -
I'm happy because our rights are constantly under threat everywhere... and it's only getting worse, said Cecile Carimalo, 46, who watched with her 12-year-old daughter at the Trocadero esplanade.
This they won't be able to take from us.
If men got pregnant, it would have been inscribed in the text in 1792 during the French Revolution, she added.
Abortion was legalised in France in 1975 in a law championed by then-health minister Simone Veil, a women's rights icon granted the rare honour of burial at the Pantheon after her death in 2018.
When political campaigning began in earnest in 1971, we could never have imagined that the right to abortion would one day be written into the constitution, Claudine Monteil, head of the Femmes Monde (Women in the World) association, told AFP.
At the time, an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 women aborted each year.
Leah Hoctor, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said France could offer the first explicit broad constitutional provision of its kind, not just in Europe, but also globally.
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