During this evening, we will retrace all the struggles led by the feminist movement so that it is finally possible for women to escape the inevitability of unwanted pregnancies.
But it will also be an evening that we want to be joyful and friendly: there will be a musical interlude with a rapper, Jodie Coste, who was present on a truck during the Parisian demonstration on November 23 against violence against women and children. And a buffet will be served.
Because we don’t forget that WE WON!
We will start the evening at 8 p.m. sharp. The doors of the MGEN will therefore be open from 7:30 p.m. so that you can settle in. We have attached an access plan here. The MGEN is located above Montparnasse station, so you just have to look up.
We are also attaching a visual with the program of the evening in QR code. See you Friday! With feminist friendship,
The Team of the Abortion Collective in Europe, Women Decide.
In the 50 years since the law decriminalising abortion came into effect, it has undergone numerous updates to reflect changes in society and was even enshrined in the Constitution in March 2024. But despite these advances, advocates warn that access to abortion remains fragile in practice.
The law to decriminalise abortion was proposed by then-Health Minister Simone Veil in November 1974. She was one of only nine female MPs at the time and faced enormous pressure – and abuse – during the 25-hour parliamentary debate. “I never imagined the hatred that I would unleash,” Veil later said, recalling how some lawmakers likened abortion to the Holocaust – of which Veil was a survivor.
Image: Emmanuel Macron speaks during a ceremony to include the freedom to have an abortion in the French constitution, International Women’s Day, 8 March 2024. © Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters
After concessions on adding a conscience clause for doctors who refused to perform the procedure, the bill was adopted with 284 votes for and 189 against. It was enacted after approval by the Senate on 17 January, 1975, becoming known as the Veil Act. It was initially adopted for a period of five years, then prolonged indefinitely in 1979.
There were initially two sets of circumstances under which abortion was accepted by the law – the first for an elective abortion due to a woman’s “distress” and the second for medical reasons. Veil herself said that abortion should only be carried out as an exception, hence the inclusion of a seven-day waiting period and a “psycho-social” interview among the conditions for a termination, both of which have fallen by the wayside in recent years.
Simone Veil, opening the debate, 1974.
In 1975, elective abortion was initially authorised up to the 10th week of pregnancy. This limit was extended to 12 weeks in 2001 and to 14 weeks in 2022. In 1975, terminations had to be done surgically by a physician in a hospital. Under today’s legal framework, they can be take place in a range of settings, managed by physicians or midwives, using various methods.
One of the biggest changes in the last 50 years has been access to medical abortion, which accounted for four out of five abortions in 2023, according to a November report by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED). Surgical abortions accounted for the rest. Initially administered in hospitals, medical abortion pills also became available in physicians’ offices, clinics and sexual health centres in the 2000s. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, women seeking medical abortions can also access health practitioners remotely.
France is among the European Union countries with the highest abortion rate. In 2023, in France as a whole (including its overseas departments) there were 17 elective abortions (16 in mainland France) per 1,000 women aged 15-49, according to the INED report. It also showed that France has seen an increase in abortions. Stable at around 220,000 per year for the last three decades, the figure began rising sharply in the early 2020s, reaching 241,700 in 2023. The report’s authors suggest that the increase in elective abortions may be “in response to greater social and economic insecurity and increasing uncertainty about the future”. Despite the legal and logistical advances in the law, access to abortion remains fragile in practice and unequal across the country.
The Planning Familial, an advocacy group, found in a survey commissioned by polling group the IFOP Institute in July 2024, that 27 percent of women who sought an abortion over the last five years had been faced with a refusal. Some of the refusals may have been linked to the conscience clause, which has been part of the law from the outset, even though it states that a medical practitioner has the right to refuse to carry out an abortion but must (though may not) immediately refer the patient to a service that can provide the procedure. Furthermore, the survey found that 31 percent of women who terminated their pregnancy before their eighth week said they were given no choice of method – medical or surgical – even though the right to make this choice is inscribed in the law.
A Senate report from October 2024 also pointed to geographical discrepancies when it came to accessing abortion. In France’s overseas departments and regions, the rate reaches close to double that of mainland France. However, it was these same departments – including Guyana, Guadeloupe and Réunion Island – where women found it difficult to access health centres due to distance and lack of transport. Rural areas in France were also subject to similar difficulties, as well as long waiting times and under-equipped regional health facilities.
Overall, the number of medical staff willing to manage abortions appeared not to be enough in 2023. Supplies of misoprostol were inadequate at the time as well and ran out in some places. Decisions to produce more of 50 essential drugs in France were made; misoprostol was in the second list of 450 other essential drugs to be produced. How soon was uncertain at the time, but the aim was to always have four months’ supply in stock.
SOURCES: RFI, by Ollia Horton, 17 January 2025 ; RFI, by Sarah Elzas, 24 June 2023.