From Crime to Right: France and the Long Road to Abortion Rights

Abstract

Abstract: From Crime to Right: France and the Long Road to Abortion Rights – The constitutionalization of the freedom to access abortion in France, adopted on 8 March 2024, represents a historic turning point that raises questions about the actual political and legal scope of the reform. It forms part of a long process leading from the criminal repression of abortion to the gradual affirmation of women’s self-determination, from the repressive legislation of the modern and contemporary periods to the Veil Act of 1975 and the subsequent expansion of legal guarantees. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision accelerated the French constitutional reform project within an international context marked by the growing fragility of reproductive rights. Yet, the notion of a “guaranteed freedom,” adopted by the French constituent power, remains open to different interpretations and raises the question of the actual intensity of the constitutional protection afforded to abortion. The reform thus appears both as a symbolic consecration and as a possible safeguard against future regression in the protection standards already achieved

Keywords: Abortion Criminalization; Abortion Rights; Constitutional Reform; French Constitutional Law; Reproductive Rights; Women’s Autonomy.