At the time, she was 19 years old. And she too could have signed the “manifesto of the 343”, these women who admitted having an illegal abortion in France in an article published in the Nouvel Observateur in 1971. Christiane Taubira reveals having undergone an abortion 54 years ago in Guyana when she was a teenager, during the documentary “Just listen to women”, broadcast on France 5 this Tuesday January 14 at 9:05 p.m.
Announced in December, this documentary produced with the assistance of the INA on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Veil law which legalized voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) gives the floor to 79 women aged 70 to 99 who had abortions at a time when it was forbidden. Including the former Minister of Justice.
“It happened to me just after the baccalaureate,” recalls the former Minister of Justice, who is presented like all the other women by her first name and her age at the time of this unwanted pregnancy. “What’s ruthless is that it’s the first strike. No time to savor the pleasure. There is a kind of punishment that falls there, like the teachings I received at the denominational school. First sin, first penalty! »
“When it happens to me, I realize it, because I don't have my period. So I talk to my boyfriend about it. I don’t remember our conversation, but we decided that it was not possible to keep this child,” she explains. It is the young man who will help her to abort, by recommending the services of one of those who were called “angel maker” at the time. He then tells her that he “knows someone who can rid me of… this thing, this embryo”.
She then gets an appointment to undergo a clandestine abortion. “On the appointed day I go to this lady’s house. I have no memory of what she did to me. I remember his closed face, I remember his silence. I remember a kind of strength, I remember a darkness, but I don't even remember physical suffering. »
After this operation in Cayenne, Christiane Taubira flew to Martinique, 2,000 km away, for her studies. This is where she will suffer the health consequences of her abortion: “I have a serious infection, a fever. For several days, we were convinced that I would not survive. » She is hospitalized urgently. “The doctor asks me: Who did this to you? I hear words like charcuterie, charcuterieI don't know. I understand that it is violent, but not for a thousandth of a second does the idea of betraying the lady occur to me. »
While 240,000 women have abortions each year, the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy was enshrined in the Constitution by a vote of March 4, 2023.
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