The Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) expressed its ‘sadness’ on Thursday, February 29, 2024, after the vote of senators in favor of including voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the Constitution.
‘Abortion, which remains an attack on life at its beginning, cannot be seen solely from the angle of women’s rights,’ underlines the body of the Catholic Church in a press release.
The constitutional revision aimed at including ‘guaranteed freedom’ for abortion in the Constitution was approved on Wednesday in the Senate, after almost unanimous support in the National Assembly.
The two houses of Parliament will meet for a final vote without suspense on Monday, four days before March 8, International Women’s Rights Day.
The bishops of France say they remain attentive to respecting the ‘freedom of conscience of doctors and all healthcare workers’ who are reluctant to perform an abortion.
An LR amendment aimed at protecting the conscience clause of doctors was not accepted in the Senate. The CEF also re
grets that the debate ‘did not mention support measures for those who would like to keep their child’.
In recent months, several bishops have spoken out against the constitutionalization of abortion, a commitment by President Emmanuel Macron on March 8, 2023.
It is ‘an admission of weakness on our ability to debate calmly on the subject of abortion,’ said the Archbishop of Rennes Pierre d’Ornellas on Vatican Radio in October.
In December, the Bishop of Bayonne Marc Aillet described abortion as ‘pure and simple elimination of a human being’ in a press release.
In France, where abortion has been legal since the Veil law of 1975, the number of abortions has remained relatively stable for around twenty years at around 230,000 per year, with a peak observed in 2022 with 234,300 abortions performed.
Source: Burkina Information Agency