The Constitutional Council considers that the offense of obstructing abortion can be extended to digital media but has two reservations.
Disinforming women via the Internet to dissuade them from having an abortion, it is officially prohibited. The Constitutional Council validated the extension of the offense of obstruction to digital media. The “pro-life” who chained themselves yesterday to the gates of health establishments practicing abortion and who work today on the Web will therefore be subject to the law and its sanctions, which can reach two years of imprisonment and 30 000 euros fine.
Seized by 60 senators and 60 deputies who considered that the text violated freedom of expression, the Sages considered that the fact of disinforming did not fall within such freedom. With two reservations, however, which could give the courts a hard time when considering future cases.
Protected anti-abortion sites
“The sole dissemination of information intended for an indeterminate public on any medium, in particular on an online communication site to the public, cannot be regarded as constituting pressure, threats or acts of intimidation (…) unless it is overlooked. freedom of expression and communication ”, write the Sages.
In other words, anti-abortion sites will not fall under the law, which partially empties the scope of the text. These sites can remain on the Web. Only “acts aimed at preventing or attempting to prevent one or more determined persons from obtaining information on or having recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy” may be punished.
The target numbers
This leads to the second reservation of the Constitutional Council, for which the offense of obstruction can only be accepted if the reprehensible element concerns an “information” and not an “opinion”, so as not to harm freedom of speech. Finally, it is necessary that “this information relates to the conditions under which a voluntary termination of pregnancy is practiced or its consequences, and that it be given by a person having or claiming to have a competence in the matter”.
Here, the Wise Men target call lines or SMS contacts, in short, all person-to-person relationships during which one delivers biased information to the other on “the conditions” and “the consequences” of the situation. ‘Abortion, by making use of their own knowledge.
At the origin of the law, Laurence Rossignol welcomed the validation of the text by the Constitutional Council and these two reservations. “As has always been said, the new provisions are aimed at the moral and psychological pressures exerted in an attempt to dissuade women from having an abortion. They in no way affect the right to express an opinion hostile to abortion ”.
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