America should learn from France’s protection of abortion rights

Less than two years after the Supreme Court declared that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion, 14 states — Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi — have enacted total or near-total bans. Georgia and South Carolina forbid the practice six weeks after conception. These states subject individuals who aid or abet an abortion to criminal prosecution.

Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court declared that anyone who destroys an “unborn child” located outside of a biological uterus, including frozen embryos, “at the time they are killed,” is criminally liable under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor statue. “Each human being, from the moment of conception,” wrote Chief Justice Tom Parker, “is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect his likeness.”

Despite initiatives around the country to exempt in vitro fertilization from grants of legal personhood, the Alabama Supreme Court decision is not that much of an outlier. Ten states (Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and Texas) grant personhood at every stage of pregnancy. Wyoming and Georgia grant personhood to all fetuses carried in the womb. In states which do not specify when personhood begins, two dozen bills on the subject have been introduced. Lawmakers in North Dakota, Missouri and West Virginia are considering revising statutes the reflect the Alabama court ruling.

Meanwhile, the French have gone in the other direction. Americans can learn a lot from them.

Despite vehement protests in what was then a conservative and predominantly Catholic country, France decriminalized abortion in the mid-1970s, around the time the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. In the ensuing decades, elective abortions were permitted for the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy, with expenses covered by the national health care system.

Stimulated by the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, French citizens and their elected representatives, including President Emmanuel Macron, took aggressive action to make their country the first in the world to make a right to abortion permanent and virtually irrevocable. All major parties and 90 percent of French citizens, it’s worth noting, support this right; 86 percent believe in affirming it as a “guaranteed freedom” in the nation’s constitution. Not surprisingly, the Conference of Bishops, which represents the Catholic Church, opposed the initiative. But in a country in which protestors do not hesitate to take to the streets to press their demands, naysayers were neither visible nor vocal.

In January of this year, the measure passed the National Assembly with overwhelming support. At the end of February, more than 80 percent of the members of the more conservative Senate gave their assent as well. “I wanted to send a message to feminists outside France,” Senator Mélanie Vogel said. “Everyone told me a year ago it was impossible. Nothing is impossible when you mobilize society.”

On March 4, by a vote of 780-72, far more than the required three-fifths majority, Parliament approved the constitutional amendment. The Eiffel Tower lit up with the message, “my body my choice.”

It now may well be America’s turn. 

Few Americans support full abortion bans. About two-thirds believe abortion should generally be legal, with about half approving the procedure at 15 weeks. Only one in ten think abortion should always be illegal. In states with the most restrictive laws, 58 percent favor allowing abortion until at least six weeks into a pregnancy.

In elections since 2022 in both red and blue states, pro-choice candidates and ballot measures have proven to be immensely popular with voters. There is no reason to think 2024 will be any different, if abortion is front and center as an issue, and candidates advocate a federal law protecting a woman’s right to choose.

After all, as Laura Rahm, a researcher at Central European University in Vienna reminds us, “A system always shines or cracks when it’s put under pressure.”

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.