March 4, 2024 will be a day to remember. It marks the inscription in the French Constitution, of the “freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy”, making France the first country in the world to enshrine it as a constitutional right, 49 years after abortion became legal. At a moment when women’s rights are under threat in many regions of the world, this decision also sends out a universal message of solidarity to women across the globe.
Groundbreaking work
To understand the history of women’s rights in France, particularly the right to bodily autonomy, one has to go back to the year 1949 when French feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex.
