The mobilization is organized each year around the anniversary of the law passed by Simone Veil relating to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) and promulgated on January 17, 1975. “It is a march for the right to live to show that the debate is still open in France, so that the French question the beliefs that are defended here,” said Sophie, 23, who, like the other demonstrators interviewed, did not wish to reveal her surname.
“Since it entered the Constitution, it has worried us a lot. Today, it is a possibility (abortion), tomorrow we may be criminals for refusing to accept the Constitution,” said Jean, a 38-year-old Parisian, alarmed.
IVG: 50 years after the Veil law, access to abortion is not always guaranteed
January 17, 2025. It has been 50 years since the law relating to the decriminalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy, known as the Veil law, came into force. On March 8, 2024, the freedom of women to have an abortion was enshrined in the Constitution. In doing so, France became the first country in the world to guarantee the freedom to resort to abortion. However, the inclusion of abortion in this fundamental text does not make it an enforceable right and difficulties in accessing abortion persist.
Speaking on a podium above which a banner proclaimed “50 years of defense of life” and where the words “50 years of political defeats” were crossed out, the president of the March for Life, Nicolas Tardy-Joubert said he was not “afraid to say that abortion is the leading cause of death in France for the human species”. “This year 2025 is very special. 50 years ago, the Veil law which decriminalized abortion was promulgated. This law has caused heavy human losses and led to the death and exclusion of more than 10 million babies from French society,” he told the crowd before they observed a minute of silence.
243,623 abortions in 2023
According to the latest official figures, 243,623 abortions were recorded in 2023, or 8,600 more than the previous year. If the rules governing abortion have been relaxed since 1975 and if “the freedom guaranteed to women” to resort to abortion was included in the Constitution in 2024, feminist associations are alarmed by a right that is still “fragile » and report “regular attacks” from his opponents.
-In addition to opposition to abortion, the organizers of the March for Life are calling, like last year, for a compulsory ultrasound from the sixth week of pregnancy, making it possible to “hear the fetal heart beat”, or even a delay in reflection of three days before any abortion. They also call to “encourage childbirth under X” and to defend “the absolute right to conscientious objection of health personnel and protect the specific conscience clause. »
Euthanasia: “a change of civilization”
Another subject also on the agenda of the demonstration, the rejection of any “legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia” and the call for “a major plan so that palliative care is accessible” to all. “Let us not forget the threats to the end of life with the new legislative proposals which could be studied in the coming weeks,” warns Nicolas Tardy-Joubert.
“I think it would really be a change of civilization if we accepted euthanasia. It’s an individualistic way of seeing things,” added Maylis, 54, from Yvelines, in the procession.
Supported by the Attal government, a bill on end of life was to legalize assisted suicide and, in certain cases, euthanasia, with strict conditions and without using these terms, preferring to speak of “active assistance in dying” . Its examination was interrupted by the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024.
