To vote the draft law extending criminal obstruction to abortion; thus is the objective of a government which has engaged in a marathon to achieve its objective. This morning, in just a few minutes, the Social Affairs Commission of the French National Assembly sent its own text back in for a final reading, without taking any notice of the modifications suggested by the senate (cf. Criminal obstruction to abortion: the senate refreshes the text without removing its freedom-destroying dimension) A surprising procedure, seeing that Laurence Rossignol committed herself to defending the senator’s version. More troubling still, the deputies were prevented from tabling any amendments before the final reading, the software being unavailable until it was too late.
The republican deputy Gilles Lurton, member of the Social Affairs Commission “regrets” the conditions in which the debate took place”, and reports “the ideological position of the majority” concerning the subject, and has already declared he would lodge an appeal before the Constitutional Council.
The text that is to be debated tomorrow by the National Assembly is therefore the version voted by that very same assembly last January. Informed at the last minute, will the deputies even care enough to attend the debate?