France to make abortion a constitutional right after senate vote

France’s Senate backed a government move to enshrine the “freedom” to have an abortion in the constitution which will now be voted on at a special congress.

France’s Senate backed a government move to enshrine the “freedom” to have an abortion in the constitution which will now be voted on at a special congress.

President Emmanuel Macron last year pledged to put the right to terminate a pregnancy - which has been legal in France since 1974 - into the constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing states to ban or curtail abortion.

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Despite opposition from some conservative members, the upper chamber voted by 267 votes to 50 to back the constitutional change.

The lower-house National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favour of making abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in January, with almost all members of Mr. Macron’s centrist minority coalition as well as left-wing opposition parties approving it.

Mr. Macron said he would call a special Congress session of the two chambers at Versailles palace on March 4 for a final vote. Mr. Macron welcomed what he called a “decisive step” by the Senate in his announcement on X.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said France was on the verge of a “historic day” when it becomes “the first country in the world to protect in its constitution the freedom of women” to decide what happens to their bodies.