Hundreds march for abortion rights

On Saturday, September 28, Paris streets filled with passionate people, with hundreds marching in support of abortion rights on behalf of women worldwide.

The march, organised by various civil society groups, coincided with International Safe Abortion Day and comes 6 months after France became the first country in the world to promise women that within its constitution they would be guaranteed their individual right to an abortion. The vote was initiated by President Emmanuel Macron, with the intention of avoiding any future reversal of rights, such as those being witnessed in states across the USA in recent times [Barbara Surk and Nicolas Garriga, AP News, 05/03/2024].

However, despite the decision to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy now being guaranteed as a constitutional right, it doesn´t mean that actually accessing one is easy. According to the president of the French not-for-profit family planning service, Sarah Durocher, women are sometimes forced to travel to a different region in order to secure an abortion. Those marching in the protest blamed budget cuts and a shortage of medical professionals, as well as the fact that many abortion centres are closing, as heavily impacting a woman´s ability to access a pregnancy termination, and insisted that something needs to change [Diane Jeantet, AP News, 28/09/2024].

Abortion rights have been a controversial topic for decades

France originally legalized abortion in 1975, a decision which was fought for by health minister at the time, Simone Veil. The law proved incredibly controversial in the predominantly conservative and Catholic country, with large protests taking place across France and a personal attack on Veil [Eleanor Beardsley, NPR, 04/03/2024]. Veil (1927 – 2017), was a Holocaust survivor and a strong feminist who, as well as fighting for women´s abortion rights, also campaigned for French women to have access to contraception [Library of Congress].

In Spain, theoretically, women are legally granted the right to terminate a pregnancy up to 14 weeks, or in some cases up to 22 weeks+ if there are considered by clinical committees and medical specialists to be serious health implications either for the mother or baby, should the foetus be carried to full-term [Centro Médico Aragón]. However, according to the Spanish Ministry of Health, 81 percent of abortions in 2021 took place in private medical centres, and Spanish women, just as the French, often have to travel long distances to find their closest abortion clinic. Some Spanish women report having to wait some 2-3 weeks in order to access their right to a termination, saying that `it´s simply not acceptable´ [Elena Ledda, Open Democracy, 09/06/2023].

In April of this year, Spanish Equality Minister, Ana Redondo, clashed with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in a debate over a proposed Italian bill to allow anti-abortion protesters into abortion clinics. In a comment on X, Redondo argued that to do so would implicate harassment against women who were legally within their rights to terminate a pregnancy. Meloni is openly against abortion and insisted that the bill would not violate any laws, declaring that Law 194 (which covers abortion rights), allows family counselling centres to support women in `overcoming factors which might lead a woman to have her pregnancy terminated´. [Laura Gozzi, BBC News, 18/04/2024].

Controversy around abortion rights continues

Controversy around the topic of abortion continues across the globe, and is also at the forefront of US news as the country navigates the presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, with Harris promising to restore abortion rights across the states. To date, 17 states across America have outlawed abortion under almost all circumstances, although some do allow for exceptions is cases of incest, rape, or significant health risks to the mother [Holly Honderich, BBC News, 30/08/2024].