In her auto-fiction Happening, first published in an English translation in 2021, Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux writes of the ignominy of getting an abortion in France in 1963. She was 23 at the time, a working-class student. In her narrative, Ernaux refuses to name her pregnancy, referring to it as “that thing” or “it” — a reminder of the threat that hangs over her in a state where abortion is illegal and seeking it can lead to imprisonment or death. Ernaux survived the ordeal but others were less fortunate. Ahead of France’s historic 780-72 vote that led to women’s right to abortion being enshrined in the French constitution, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal invoked the suffering and struggle of these women: “Today, the present must respond to history. To enshrine this right in our constitution is to close the door on the tragedy of the past and its trail of suffering and pain… We’re sending a message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one can decide for you.”
The amendment, France’s first since 2008, is historic not merely because the right to abortion has had a stormy history in the country — it was only legalised in 1975 — but because, across the world, there has been a dangerous backsliding on hard-won freedoms relating to a woman’s autonomy over her body. The French amendment is an explicit response to the trend seen in countries like Hungary, which, in 2022, placed significant bureaucratic hurdles before women seeking an abortion, and Poland, where a near total ban was imposed in 2021. The 2022 overturning of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v Wade (1973) set alarm bells ringing.
While the global movement of abortion rights has largely been towards greater liberalisation — Ireland in 2018 and Mexico in 2023 — these developments underline the continued vulnerability of women’s right to bodily autonomy in a society that remains stubbornly patriarchal. In India, where the legal framework on reproductive rights has incrementally moved in favour of women’s autonomy, the test of “foetal viability” is a new factor that could potentially set back progress made over the years. In 2023, this was seen in the case of a woman seeking medical termination of her 26-week pregnancy, citing physical and mental incapacity. The SC denied her the abortion in the interest of the rights of the unborn child. Such decisions also point to the moral value ascribed to what is, in essence, a deeply personal matter. France’s amendment, therefore, sets a welcome precedent, in which neither patriarchy nor morality gets to have a say in what is, essentially, a woman’s decision.
