It is a right that we thought acquired. On June 24, the US Supreme Court opened up the possibility for states to abolish the right of women to abortion. Only a few hours after this decision, the ax fell in several states, some of which prohibited it… including in cases of rape or incest. But let’s not pretend to be scared: in France, we are not (yet) in the United States.
It is tempting to equate the French Constitutional Council with the American Supreme Court; however, these two jurisdictions do not have the same prerogatives. The first is in charge of the control of the laws: it must establish if the laws presented or those existing, are in agreement with the fundamental principles enshrined in the Constitution of 1958, in the preamble of the Constitution of 1946 and in the Declaration of rights of the man and the citizen of 1789. Its role is therefore to judge the laws and not the facts.
In the United States, the Supreme Court has much more important prerogatives: It plays a role that our Constitutional Council does not have: it interprets the Constitution. That is to say, it makes law, it generates standards that have not been voted on by the national representation “, notes the lecturer and specialist in the United States Jean-Eric Branaa. The Supreme Court is also the higher level than all the jurisdictions of the country, whose law is essentially derived from case law. It therefore decides on the legal cases already judged, which reach it by the appeal procedure. If the right to abortion was guaranteed until last Friday in the country, it is therefore through a case, the “Roe v. Wade”, which enshrined this right as guaranteed by Section 14 of the US Constitution.
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So, to revisit that decision some 50 years later, the new Republican-dominated Supreme Court did the same, relying on Dobbs v. Jackson. This time, she decides that the right to abortion is not protected by Article 14 of the Constitution, allowing all the republican and conservative states to ban this right to women residing in their territories. “ Reversals of jurisprudence have always taken place. It is thanks to a reversal of jurisprudence that American racial segregation ends, but it is the first time that a reversal operates a narrowing of the rights of citizens “, laments Jean-Eric Branaa.
Not the same lobbying
Another major difference: the American political and militant landscape differs enormously from the French framework. Of course, France has its share of religious currents, particularly among Christians and Muslims, who try to influence politics in the name of their beliefs. Marriage for all has resurrected the image of Catholic protests and the various laws relating to the veiling of women also trigger strong reactions. But in the United States, extremely strong lobbying by evangelical currents has been exerted on the Trump administration “, recalls Jean-Eric Branaa, encouraging the American president to appoint very conservative judges to the Supreme Court to succeed, ultimatelyto this decision.
READ ALSO: “Inscribing abortion in the Constitution is useless and senseless”
On the side of the French national representation, there are few or no parliamentarians who assume to want to abolish laws because they are contrary to their religious convictions. ” There is no declared opponent of the right to abortion in Parliamentconfirms PS senator and feminist Laurence Rossignol. There are many activists who put pressure, but they are not relayed by politicians. ” In the country, ” the French are overwhelmingly in favor of this rightcontinues the senator. The anti-abortionists cannot afford to go head-on. It would take a trauma, a major drama, for the challenge to come back to the right to abortion itself. “. In France, the Common Senses and other Civitas are rightly perceived by public opinion as radical and minority Christians.
Improving access to care
Can you imagine a former French president qualifying a decision as “ God’s will »? This is the exact expression used by Donald Trump the day after the Supreme Court’s reversal of case law. Since his visit to the White House, Christian fundamentalists have welcomed him: they now embody a major current of the American right. ” It is the common fact of all fundamentalists to think that the law of men must be written by the hand of God. “Laments Laurence Rossignol. A situation from which France still seems protected, in particular thanks to the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State. The feminist philosopher Élisabeth Badinter recalled this evidence on the airwaves of France Inter on Saturday: “ Religious countries, Muslims or Christians, are a danger to women’s freedoms. “And to conclude:” It is secularism that protects us. God does not legislate, human beings are the ones who decide their fate. »
But it is not because our institutional model seems less inclined to this type of reversal that there is no longer any debate. ” Today in France, anti-abortionists must hide behind other fights, depending on political or societal circumstances… The offense of obstructing abortion was one of them, the vote to extend the maximum period also “, explains Laurence Rossignol. There remains a point of real difficulty in access to abortion in France: access to medicine outside the big cities – and therefore to abortion in medical deserts. ” It is more complex to plan a late abortion in a hospital such as that of Périgueux, rather than in a dedicated structure in Paris “, signaled to Marianne Bertrand de Rochambeau, president of the Syndicate of medical gynecologists and obstetrician gynecologists (Syngof). Another problem… the solution of which can hardly go through an inscription in the Constitution.