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France Pushes Abortion Rights Beyond Its Borders
France Pushes Abortion Rights Beyond Its Borders
Last month, a French delegation went to Geneva with the European Women's Lobby to push an abortion-related resolution at the upcoming Beijing+20 Summit. With this and other efforts France is developing a profile as a European leader on abortion rights.
Women in Strasbourg, France, protest Spain's attempts to reform its abortion law.
PARIS (WOMENSENEWS)--French women reap the benefits of one of the more progressive abortion laws in the European Union and now some activists, politicians and health practitioners here are pushing to have those benefits expand beyond their country's borders.
"France thinks it's important to continue to speak on this subject if we don't want to go back," said Sandrine Simon, an advisor in the sexual and reproductive health program at Medecins du Monde in Paris. "Europe as a region had previously a common voice at the United Nations regarding reproductive rights, access to abortion and access to contraception, but since Malta and Poland have entered the E.U. it's not possible anymore to have this common voice."
While most countries in the E.U. have progressive abortion laws, Malta and Poland, along with Ireland and Andorra, have some of the most restrictive laws in the continent.
Two notable French efforts--a manifesto and an E.U. campaign that includes a lobbying effort focused on a global development gathering--are trying to change that and renew a common continental voice in favor of expanded abortion access. These and allied causes in France have been energized by recent anti-choice efforts in Europe, particularly the near brush with a major restriction in neighboring Spain.
In September, after much national and international outcry, Spain abandoned its plan to pass a bill that would have made abortion available only in the cases of a health risk for the mother or a fetus malformation. Currently women in Spain can terminate unwanted pregnancies on demand within 14 weeks of pregnancy or up to 22 weeks in cases of severe abnormalities.
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http://womensenews.org/story/abortion/141212/france-pushes-abortion-rights-beyond-its-borders