France amends its constitution to inscribe the right to abortion

France has amended its constitution to inscribe the right to abortion. This was done on March 8, International Women’s Day.

Abortion has been legal in France since 1975, but Macron last year pledged to better protect it after the United States Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, leaving it up to individual states to decide. Macron has also promised he “will not rest” until women across Europe have the same protection.

Generally, I am a big fan of all things French. However, was this amendment really necessary? Abortion is not a controversial issue in France or in most countries of Western Europe. Ireland is an exception, I believe. I would have been a big deal if Ireland, or better still, the USA has incorporated the right to abortion as a constitutional right.

But France? Seems to be a farce, as many in the media are saying. 

Pro-Choice or Pro-Life: Where do the US Presidential Candidates stand?

 

Abortion has always been a hot topic in US presidential elections and in the one coming up, it’s even more relevant after June 24, 2022, when the US Supreme Court (in the case of Dobbs) overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling which had guaranteed women the right to an abortion up until the point of foetal viability (about 24 weeks). After the Dobbs decision, 14 states, including most of the South, have enacted near-total bans from the moment of conception. Georgia has banned abortion after six weeks, which is before most women know they are pregnant.

So where do each of the Presidential candidates stand on abortion?

Joe Biden

President Joe Biden, a Democrat and a devout Catholic, supports access to abortion and has called on Congress to codify protections for the right to abortion that were guaranteed by Roe. He has said he would veto any legislation that would ban abortions federally.

Donald Trump

It was President Trump who had appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices, all of whom helped strike down Roe in a 5-4 vote in Dobbs. However, Trump’s stand on abortion seems to be opportunistic. In early 2023 at a Faith & Freedom convention, Trump said there should be some role for the federal government on the abortion issue but most other times has remained skeptical of a federal ban, most recently saying it is "probably better" to leave it to the states.

Trump’s abortion ban skepticism has often times annoyed pro-lifers. De Santis thinks Trump is  “not pro-life” and has said that the former president “flip-flipped” on the issue of abortion.

Most recently, there have been reports that the ex-president, plans to rebrand as a “moderate” on reproductive rights after repeated GOP losses on the issue.

Ron DeSantis

DeSantis has made it clear that he plans to be a "pro-life president." Last April DeSantis signed into law a bill approved by the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

DeSantis has not said if he would support a national abortion ban. However, last September, during the course of a Republican presidential debate, in response to q question from Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, DeSantis said that he would sign a “15-week limit” on abortion as president.

Mike Pence

Just like Trump, Former Vice President Mike Pence brags about how he helped in the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade with the appointment of three conservative justices while he was in office.

Pence supports exceptions for abortion access in the cases of rape, incest and to save the life of a mother, but not with nonviable pregnancies. He’s called on the rest of the 2024 field to support a 15-week federal abortion ban, at minimum. Pence is the only major candidate who supports a federal ban on abortion at six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant. He has advocated pulling from the market a widely used abortion pill that has a better safety record than penicillin and Viagra.

Nikki Haley

The only female Republican candidate has called for a national "consensus" and to stop "dehumanizing" the issue.  Haley has said that passing a federal abortion ban would be highly unlikely without more Republicans in Congress. But, she has also said she would "absolutely" sign a 15-week federal abortion ban into law.

During her time in the state House of Representatives from 2004 to 2010, Haley backed two “right to life” bills that would have significantly limited abortion access statewide, although neither bill ultimately became law.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy has said he is not in favor of a federal abortion ban. However, has said he is "unapologetically pro-life" and believes that "most Americans share pro-life instincts" too. Vivek prefers to leave regulation of abortion up to the states.

Book Review: ‘Curry is Thicker than Water’ by Jasmine D’Costa

Jasmine D’Costa is a banker from Mumbai with over 25 years of banking experience who now lives in Toronto, Canada, and writes full-time. In case you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible for a finance professional who has crunched numbers for two and a half decades to write fiction, D’Costa’s debut work settles the issue with a thumping Obamaesque 'Yes You Can'.

'Curry is Thicker than Water' is a collection of short stories about Indians set in Mumbai and Goa and Nagpur. The best thing about D’Costa’s writing is that though her language is very simple and basic and she writes about ordinary people and events which are not very unusual (for India), she manages to give her stories and characters an exotic tang.

In one of her stories, ‘She Married A Pumpkin’, in my opinion the best in the collection, the prettiest girl in town is discovered to have a fault in her horoscope. A fault which will cause her first husband to die soon after the wedding. The stream of suitors keen to marry her stops after this discovery. There is of course a solution. If the girl marries a pumpkin first, she can then safely marry a human being. Was D’Costa inspired by Aishwarya Rai who married a tree before she married Abhishek Bachchan? May be. In any event, the pretty girl marries a pumpkin. The marriage liberates her. She can attend parties and functions and do all the things married women do. So, when a (human) suitor approaches her parents again for her hand, should she bother to remarry? Do read this story to find out.

The opening story ‘The Elephant on the Highway’ is as humorous as the pumpkin tale, but not all of D’Costa’s stories are in a similar light vein. In ‘Eggs’ the mother destroys her son’s dreams – for a very good reason. You end up feeling sorry for both, may be more for the son than the mother. In ‘Two Wives and a Doormat’ a drunkard's two wives team up in a manner reminiscent of the two sisters in law from Deepa Mehta’s Fire. No, they don’t become lesbians. I’ll leave it to you to read the story and find out what they get up to. In ‘Cobras and Pigs, Holy Cow’, neighbours of different faiths, Hindus, Christians and Muslims, weave spells and black magic on each other in a glut of superstitious frenzy.

The last story in the collection, 'The Guest at my Grandfather’s House' is the weakest story of the lot, since it is meant to keep the reader in suspense till the end and one is able to guess the answer to the mystery before one is halfway through. Despite that, D’Costa’s narration keeps one engrossed in the tale.

An eminently readable collection and I hope that we get to read more such good stuff from D’Costa.