French lawmakers are expected on Monday to anchor the right to abortion in the country’s constitution, a world first that has garnered overwhelming public support
A congress of both houses of parliament in Versailles, starting at 3:30 pm (1430 GMT), should find the three-fifths majority needed for the change after it overcame initial resistance in the right-leaning Senate.
If the congress approves the move, France will become the only country in the world to protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its basic law.
President Emmanuel Macron pledged last year to enshrine abortion — legal in France since 1975 — in the constitution after the United States Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing individual American states to ban or curtail it.
