France enshrines right to abortion in Constitution, Macron vows global advocacy

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said France would not rest until the right to abortion, now protected by the French constitution in a world first, was guaranteed in the EU rights charter and around the globe.

Macron spoke after hot wax was sealed to a constitutional amendment to formally inscribe the right to terminate a pregnancy.

The ceremony on International Woman’s Day came after parliament gave its final assent earlier this week.

“France today becomes the only country worldwide whose constitution explicitly protects the right to abortion in all circumstances,” Macron said in front of the justice ministry on the Place Vendome in central Paris.

But “we will not rest until this promise is kept everywhere in the world.”

Abortion has been legal in France since 1975, but Macron last year pledged to better protect it after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the United States’ half-century-old right to the procedure, leaving it up to individual states to decide.

In a historic vote, a rare congress of both houses of France’s parliament on Monday gave a green light to make terminating a pregnancy a “guaranteed freedom” in the basic text, sparking celebration among feminists.

“Today is not the end of the story. It’s the start of a fight,” Macron said.