Citizenship and Abortion in the Public Sphere

The fight for abortion rights and bodily autonomy is not new to the feminist cause. Women, in France and abroad, have continuously fought for their rights. However, the case of the Manifesto of the 343 is significant because they argued that without the right to abortion procedures, women were not fully citizens of France. In their appeal, they state “Free abortion on demand is not the ultimate goal of women’s plight. On the contrary, it is but the most basic necessity, without which the political fight cannot even begin.”(1) The signatories of the Manifesto of the 343 challenged the gendering of citizenship by framing the issue of abortion as an issue of bodily autonomy, a right that is guaranteed to all French citizens under the Civil Code.

In France, the right to bodily autonomy has been systematically guaranteed for citizens since 1804 in the Napoleonic Code “and is today an integral part of article 16 of the Civil Code governing a citizen’s right to physical integrity.”(2) (Paradoxically, laws prohibiting abortion in France have existed since 1810.) Republicanism and citizenship in France rely on a model of abstract individualism that insists that people are essentially the same regardless of the differences that make them individuals. Their individuality is the common thread that guarantees a citizen rights.(3) From the onset of the French Revolution, French revolutionaries have contended that it is sexual difference that bars women from civic and political rights. Throughout French history, feminists have challenged this notion by arguing that their sexual difference is another aspect of their individuality. Madeleine Pelletier, a French physician and activist, argued that the “criminalization of abortion [was] a denial of women’s individuality, another aspect of the denial of citizenship.”(4) In other words, by excluding women on the basis of their sex, the government is denying women their individuality. If women are not individuals, they cannot be citizens. When Charles de Gaulle did give women the right to vote in 1944, he considered the right to be “continuing a feminine tradition of duty and thinking of others”.(5) Because women's suffrage was granted by the president instead of through legislative means, their enfranchisement was seen as a gift and not a legal entitlement.(6) However, once women received the right to vote and theoretically became citizens, these restrictive abortion laws continued to expose the inconsistencies between the republican ideal of citizenship and the legislation that continued to disenfranchise women.

The anti-abortion legislation that these women were protesting was a part of a series of pronatalist policies put forth by the French government. While this legislation was enacted in the interwar period, pronatalist agendas continued to be pushed after defeat in World War II. Despite the influence of the Catholic church during this time, these laws “regarded abortion as an infraction against the state, putting population concerns above even moral considerations.”(7) This is particularly interesting because, in the context of midcentury France, the issue of abortion is seen as a rejection of republican ideals, further emphasizing de Gaulle's image of the feminine duty. In turn, by emphasizing the gendered nature of citizenship and the failures of the theory of individualism, the signatories of the Manifesto of the 343 challenged the foundations of French politics.

Prior to receiving the right to vote in 1944, Louise Weiss– French author and feminist activist–campaigned for suffrage by attacking the irreconcilable gaps in republican ideology and argued that they needed to be remedied.(8) In a similar fashion to Weiss, those that signed the manifesto in Le Nouvel Observateur were attacking the inconsistencies between their rights as citizens and federal policies aimed at controlling reproduction and women’s sexuality. By issuing a public declaration of their violation of the laws, these women brought the topic of abortion into a national discussion. In doing so, these women showed the ineffectiveness of the laws in preventing abortions and publicly challenged the state to reconcile with these gaps. Through multiple manifestoes issued by doctors, activists, intellectuals, and others and public displays of dissent, French feminists continued to promote public discourse over the issue. By 1973, the French government admitted that the law was outdated and needed to be revised. (9) This reconciliation of the ideals of citizenship and its practice manifested in the passing of Law 75-17, popularly known as the "Veil law" ("la loi Veil") after health minister Simone Veil who heavily supported its passage. While this law did not accomplish the goals set in the manifesto of free abortion on demand, it reframed the discussion of abortion from a woman's issue to an issue of citizenship—one that transcends gender altogether.

1. “The Manifesto of the 343”, Le Nouvel Observateur, no. 334, April 1971, 6.

2. Reineke, Beauvoir and her sisters, p 7

3. Joan Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man. (Cambridge: Havard University Press), 1996, Kindle, Location 2061

4. Joan Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer, Location 121

5. Reineke, Beauvoir and Her Sisters, 14

6. Reineke, Sandra. Beauvoir and Her Sisters : The Politics of Women's Bodies in France, University of Illinois Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, 13

7. Reineke, Beauvoir and Her Sisters, 13-14

8. Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer, Location 2198

9. Nan Robertson, “345 French Doctors Fight for Abortion.” New York Times, February 6, 1973.