Abortion rights: French parliament votes to include right in constitution

Lawmakers in France’s lower house of parliament voted to include abortion rights in the country’s constitution.

The left-wing authors of the law proposal said it was aimed at “protecting and guaranteeing the fundamental right to voluntary termination of pregnancy and to contraception by inscribing it into our Constitution.”

Abortion in France was decriminalised under a key 1975 law, but there is nothing in the constitution that would guarantee abortion rights.

Mathilde Panot, the left-wing MP who proposed the law, hailed the victory, saying that France was speaking to the world.

This story is being updated.