Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA’s General Delegate’s viewpoint:
“The March 16, 2017 decision from the French Constitutional Council is ambiguous.
The law becomes ineffective for the content on abortion websites, which were initially targeted by the government. Justice is done, especially as the government site doesn’t hesitate in giving women misleading information, trivializing the effects of abortion. The law would only punish those giving false “information”, and not just voicing their “opinion” on the abortion conditions and its’ consequences, given by someone “who is, or who pretends to be competent on the subject”. So be it, but what is the distinction between information and an opinion? And who decides? When France’s minister for women’s rights, Laurence Rossignol, explains that abortion does not interrupt a life, is it considered a fact or only her personal opinion?
And what difference does it make, since the law only targets the information dissuading against abortion, and excludes those who encourage abortion. The Council lets them get away with this discrimination.”
On February 17, 2017, Alliance VITA filed a complaint against the French ministry of Health with the Paris administrative court for the inexact or biased information on abortion published on the government’s official abortion website.
