50 Years After the Law on Abortion What Has Been Done About Prevention?

50 years after the law on abortion
What has been done about prevention?

PRESS RELEASE – 16th January 2025

Resorting to abortion, when the law was adopted on 17th January 1975, was first presented as an exceptional measure in cases of extreme distress. It was supported with information aimed at controlling its use and “as far as possible to dissuade the mother”, to quote the actual wording by Simone Veil.

However, between 1975 and 2022, the law has been modified 9 times, always with the intention of making abortion readily available to all and removing all the devices presenting alternatives. From an exception, abortion has become a freedom which is now registered in the French Constitution and has been stripped of all preventive measures.

It is hardly surprising that the number of abortions reached a record level, i.e. 243,623 in 2023. How can one be satisfied with an abortion rate among the highest in Europe?

Prevention is a priority for all health-related policies… except for abortion. The public authorities appear determined not to evaluate the causes or the consequences and dare not express any will to protect women from abortion, as far as possible. Any questioning of the subject becomes suspect or even illegal. Nevertheless, abortion does raise questions. Because it is an irreversible act which jeopardises human life, abortion should never be presented to women as inevitable. Quite on the contrary there is a need to examine the causes and conditions which lead women to abort:

• Contraception failures, nearly three quarters of all women resorting to abortion were on contraception when they became pregnant.
• Procreation standards which have gradually become more stringent: to have a child, you must be neither too young, nor too old, live as a couple with a stable job, adequate income, etc
• Financial difficulties : according to a survey by Drees the rate of abortion is higher among women of lesser means.
• Violence: in 40 % of the 201,000 cases concerned each year by domestic violence, the problem initiated with the first pregnancy.

All this data is worthy of study in order to develop a policy centred on a comprehensive information package and support for women confronting an unplanned pregnancy.

According to a survey by Ifop* this week, 80% of French people are in favour of including in the official booklet provided to women, full details of all the benefits available to pregnant women and young mothers. 65% of them believe that society should do more to help women to avoid resorting to abortion.

Even if opposition on this subject remains unwavering, our society should be able to agree on the need for a prevention scheme for women who wish to avoid abortion. Protecting women from all the pressures and offering them alternatives is more than ever a matter of social urgency.

* Ifop survey, The French people and abortion, January 2025