Thousands of Pro-Lifers March in Paris as French Parliament Considers Radical Pro-Abortion Measure

LifeSite News ^ | 1/26/23 | Jeanne Smits

[marshmallow]

The march also focused on the euthanasia debate now well under way in France.

PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — Twenty-thousand pro-lifers marched for life on January 22 in Paris, as France faces two major legislative battles in 2023 that threaten to add “equal access to the right to abortion” to the constitution and make euthanasia fully legal.

Given the high stakes, it was a pity that the turnout on Sunday was not higher than in previous years, although the overwhelming numbers of teenagers and very young adults at this year’s March for Life are certainly a sign that the upcoming generation is not taking the culture of death for granted.

“Life is worth living” was one of the slogans of the March. The event, in a somewhat different form, took place on January 17, 1988, on the 13th anniversary of the entry into force of the infamous “Loi Veil.” That is the name given in France to its abortion law promoted in Parliament by health minister Simone Veil in 1974. The law lifted penal sanctions for abortions under well-defined circumstances and with a number of so-called safeguards, such as a ten-week time limit, a one-week cooling-off period, and compulsory counseling to help women with obtaining social assistance in order to carry on with their pregnancy. Simone Veil argued that “her” law’s main objective would be to “dissuade” women from having abortions but many of the law’s provisions, such as the setting up of publicly funded pregnancy care centers, were never implemented.

As soon as the law was adopted, yearly official abortion figures in France skyrocketed to over 200,000 a year. After a temporary dip, and, over time, the lifting or easing of all the conditions for access to voluntary abortion, yearly abortion figures have now reached over 220,000 a year.

[Arcadian Empire]

Pro-lifers need to stop using the terms “radical” and “extreme” to describe pro-abortion laws.

It conveys that there are pro-abortion laws that pro-lifers view as “mainstream” and “reasonable” and that, in practice, is exactly the position that the rhetoric emboldens many Republican politicians to take.