French lawmakers are expected Monday to anchor the right to abortion in the country’s constitution, in a global 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 Congress approves the move, France will become the only country in the world to clearly protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its basic law.
President Emmanuel Macron pledged last year to include enshrine abortion — legal in France since 1975 — in the constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing states to ban or curtail it.
France’s lower-house National Assembly in January overwhelmingly approved making abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in the constitution, followed by the Senate on Wednesday.
The bill is now expected to clear the final hurdle of a combined vote of both chambers when they gather for a rare joint session at the former royal residence of the Palace of Versailles.
Few expect any difficulty finding the needed supermajority after the three-fifths mark was largely exceeded in both previous ballots.
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