Government drive to ease abortion rules denounced

France’s Catholic bishops have denounced a government campaign to ease conditions for abortion under the slogan “Abortion - my body, my choice, my right” Tom Heneghan writes.

The condemnation came two days after Socialist Health Minister Marisol Touraine presented the campaign last week that includes a national hotline to advise women seeking abortion. A health bill is also going through parliament, to allow midwives to carry out drug-induced abortions and abolish the seven-day waiting period before an abortion can be performed. Abortion was legalised in France 40 years ago but remains difficult to obtain in some areas, said Ms Touraine, who sported a tattoo that said “My body belongs to me” during the news conference.

Fr Pierre-Hervé Grosjean, a bioethicist for Versailles diocese, said the campaign was characterised by “unbearable ideological hype that aims to neutralise all debate and impose as obvious that which is not”.