{"id":40042,"date":"2024-03-10T08:15:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T02:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=40042"},"modified":"2025-04-24T22:13:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T16:43:03","slug":"right-to-abortion-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/right-to-abortion-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Right to Abortion in France"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in the News?<\/li>\n<li>Background<\/li>\n<li>About the Amendment<\/li>\n<li>What About Other European Countries?<\/li>\n<li>Abortion Laws in India<\/li>\n<li>Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021<\/li>\n<li>Major Provisions of the MTP (Amendment) Act, 2021<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in the News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In a global first, France inscribed the guaranteed right to abortion in its constitution on March 8, on International Women\u2019s Day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Background<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In January 2024, France\u2019s Parliament had passed an amendment to provide constitutional validity to right to abortion.<\/li>\n<li>Abortion, although legal in France since 1975, has now been a \u201cguaranteed freedom\u201d for women.<\/li>\n<li>Although rare, amending the constitution is not without precedent in France.<\/li>\n<li>The French constitution has been modified nearly 25 times since it was adopted in 1958.<\/li>\n<li>The last instance was in 2008 when Parliament was awarded more powers and presidential tenure was limited to a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms in office.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About the Amendment<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Bill, introduced last year, stipulates that \u201cthe law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy, which is guaranteed.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>This means that future governments will not be able to drastically modify existing laws which permit termination up to 14 weeks.<\/li>\n<li>France is the only country to currently have such a specification about abortion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What About Other European Countries?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Abortion is currently accessible in more than 40 European nations, but some countries are seeing increased efforts to limit access to the procedure.<\/li>\n<li>In September 2022, Hungary\u2019s far-right government made it obligatory for women to listen to the pulse of the foetus, sometimes called the \u201cfoetal heartbeat,\u201d before they can access a safe abortion.<\/li>\n<li>Poland, which has some of the most stringent abortion laws in Europe, allows termination only in the event of rape, incest or a threat to the mother\u2019s health or life.<\/li>\n<li>The U.K. permits abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy if it is approved by two doctors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Abortion Laws in India<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The law on abortion in India is primarily governed by Sections 312-316 of the Indian Penal Code and the provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971.<\/li>\n<li>The MTP Act 1971, by laying down certain permissible grounds under which a woman can undertake medical termination of pregnancy, creates an exception to the general law against abortion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In March 2021, the Parliament passed the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021 to amend the MTP Act, 1971.<\/li>\n<li>The MTP (Amendment) Act, 2021 has expanded the access to safe and legal abortion services on therapeutic, eugenic, humanitarian and social grounds to ensure universal access to comprehensive care.<\/li>\n<li>The MTP (Amendment) Act, 2021 came into force in September, 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Major Provisions of the MTP (Amendment) Act, 2021<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Increase in Gestation Periods:\n<ul>\n<li>The Amendment Act increases the maximum gestational limit for pregnancies that may be <u>aborted on the advice of one &#8216;registered medical practitioner&#8217; from 12 weeks to 20 weeks<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>For pregnancies that may be <u>aborted on the advice of two medical practitioners, the limit has been raised to 24 weeks<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>Earlier, if the length of the pregnancy was over 20 weeks and a woman wished to undergo a termination, she would have to file a writ petition before the High Court concerned or the Supreme Court.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Recognition of Pregnancies outside of Traditional Marriages:\n<ul>\n<li>The Amendment reflects the change in definition from &#8220;pregnant married woman&#8221; to &#8220;pregnant woman&#8221; and from &#8220;her husband&#8221; to &#8220;her partner&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Termination due to Failure of Contraceptive Method\/Device:\n<ul>\n<li>Another laudable amendment is the inclusion of unwanted pregnancies due to the failure of contraceptives as a ground for abortion.<\/li>\n<li>Under the original MTP Act, abortions could take place only by proving that there was grave risk to the pregnant woman or grave risk of serious physical or mental abnormality.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Setting up of Medical Boards:\n<ul>\n<li>All state and union territory governments will constitute a Medical Board.<\/li>\n<li>The Board will decide if a pregnancy may be terminated after 24 weeks due to substantial foetal abnormalities.<\/li>\n<li>Earlier, medical boards are created by various High Courts and Supreme Court after entertaining writs filed by women and were not in any way statutorily mandated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Privacy:\n<ul>\n<li>A registered medical practitioner may only reveal the details of a woman whose pregnancy has been terminated to a person authorised by law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France\u2019s Parliament has passed an amendment to provide constitutional validity to right to abortion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","7":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}