In Parliament, the Delegation for Women’s Rights recommends removing the conscience clause for abortion. Among health professionals, the subject is debated.
Abortion still provokes heated debate. At the National Assembly, the Women’s Rights delegation issued its recommendations on access to voluntary termination of pregnancy. The measures it proposes are not all unanimous.
A few weeks before the discussion of the Health bill, the parliamentary delegation wanted to make its voice heard. Among its 21 recommendations, it attacks in particular the conscience clause, which allows health professionals to refuse to perform an abortion. The subject is quite sensitive.
” An obstacle “
This provision specific to abortion was incorporated into the Veil law in 1975. It is added to a “general” conscience clause included in the Public Health Code (article R4127-47), which guarantees any professional the right to refuse to perform any medical act, for “professional or personal” reasons.
For the Delegation of Women’s Rights, this legislative redundancy is irrelevant. In a press release, two MPs, Catherine Coutelle and Catherine Quéré, write that the specific clause on abortion “persists under a compromise accepted in 1975 within the Veil law” and that it “contributes to making abortion a separate medical act and helps to limit access to a fundamental right which must be unimpeded in order to become fully effective ”.
“A false problem”
On the side of the representative bodies of French gynecologists and obstetricians, we do not understand it that way. For the CNGOF (National College of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians), it is above all a non-subject. “Since a clause already makes it possible to refuse to perform an act, there is no point in removing the other,” specifies to why actor Bernard Hédon, its president. I do not see the usefulness of legislating on the issue, since in fact, that will not change anything ”.
The French Society of Gynecology thinks none the less. “This is a false problem, since by definition, the clause applies to all areas of medicine”, indicates its president, Joëlle Belaïsch-Allart.
Abortion, “a special medical exercise”
The midwives, for their part, looked more precisely at the merits of this specific clause on abortion. “It’s a strong guarantee for healthcare professionals,” explains Marie-José Keller. For the president of the National Council of the Order of Midwives, performing an abortion is a “particular medical exercise”. “On the one hand, we try to maintain a very fragile pregnancy at all costs, and on the other hand, we have to terminate pregnancies that would have easily resulted, these are 180 ° practices. “
“For an abortion to be carried out with empathy and benevolence, the personal consent of the health professional is needed. Under duress, it is badly done “, continues Marie-José Keller, who affirms that Simone Veil” had insisted a lot on this clause of conscience “.
Help reflection
In its report, the Women’s Rights delegation also proposes to eliminate the reflection period imposed on women who wish to have an abortion. Currently, a week must elapse between the two medical consultations which precede the abortion. For the delegation, this situation “complicates and lengthens the journey of women, and places them in an infantilizing situation”. A position equal to that of the High Council for Equality between Men and Women.
Here too, opinions differ. The French Society of Gynecologists finds this period of seven days “absurd” and wishes to extend it to a few days – between two and four – without wanting to completely eliminate it. “Abortion is not a trivial act. The patient must not make her decision on a whim, ”says Joëlle Belaïsch-Allart. Midwives, for their part, advocate for a flexible period “depending on the situation”, between two and seven days. As for the CNGOF, it recalls that this period can already be removed “when the situation requires it” and considers that it can constitute a “last aid to a difficult decision”.
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