On March 4, the upper and lower houses of the French parliament at a special joint session in Versailles approved amendments to the Constitution and enshrined women's right to abortion. France has become the first country in the world to guarantee the right to abortion by the Basic Law. This was reported by Reuters, according to UNN.
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To amend the Constitution, at least 60% of the votes were required. As a result, 780 deputies voted in favor of the decision, while 72 voted against. The adopted amendment became the 25th in the constitution, which has been in force since 1958, and the first since 2008.
Prior to that, both chambers of parliament supported the amendment separately: the National Assembly (lower house) did so on January 30 by 493 votes to 30, and the Senate approved the proposal on February 29 by 267 votes to 50.
Abortion has been legal in France since 1975. Since then, the relevant law has been amended nine times, each time with the aim of further expanding women's right to terminate pregnancy.
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In the fall of 2022, President Emmanuel Macron promised to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution. This happened after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion is not a constitutional right and that decisions on its legality should be made by individual state governments. Since then, about a dozen states have either banned abortion completely or severely restricted it.
French Senate includes the right to abortion in the Constitution29.02.24, 01:15