France begins debate on protecting abortion right

The French Parliament has begun a debate that could see the country become the first in the world to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right.

The proposal, first announced last year by President Emmanuel Macron on March 8, International Women's Day, and then reiterated as an aim for 2024 in October, has been introduced to the lower house, the National Assembly, and will also require the support of the upper house, the Senate, before it goes to a vote, penciled in for March.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told the assembly that abortion rights were not a conventional civil liberty as "they allow women to decide their future".

The debate over abortion was stirred up around the world in 2022 when the United States Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade ruling that made abortion a constitutional right in the US.

There has been widespread support across the French political spectrum for the constitutional change, but it is not universal, with the rightwing president of the Senate, Gerard Larcher of the Republicans party, saying he did not see that the right was threatened in France and that the constitution was not a "catalogue of social and society rights".

The first article of the French constitution formally recognizes the country as a secular state, but leading figures in the Catholic church in France have expressed concern at the proposed reform.

Archbishop of Rennes Pierre d'Ornellas, a spokesman on bioethics for the bishops of France, told Vatican Radio that making abortion a constitutional right could infringe on free speech, as it would eliminate the right to hold a contrary opinion.

He also queried the decision to let Parliament decide, rather than putting it to a public referendum.

"This looks like an admission of weakness on our ability to calmly debate the subject," he said, adding "we are a society of social relations "and that everyone should "take care of the most fragile".

Poland and Malta were the last EU member states to make abortion legal, and it is still subject to tight restrictions.

However, Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently announced plans to ease the rules, prompting the country's health ministry to say on social media "a great moment for all of us! We are giving women back the right to decide about themselves".