The French Manifesto

In Paris last week, Surgeon Georges Thomeret talked to reporters and displayed a photograph of a dead woman. "She was 24 years old, married, and had a child of two. She had an abortion, done by her concierge. Voila: dead of septicemia [blood poisoning] because she could not afford $500 for a safe abortion in England. That is why I signed the manifesto, because of this woman and others like her."

The manifesto, issued last week and signed by 390 French doctors, makes bold demands on a nation that has successfully resisted even moderate abortion reform for half a century; it calls for unrestricted abortion on request --and at the expense of the state. Many of the signers are prominent in medicine and some are practicing Catholics. All, moreover, acknowledge that they have performed or arranged abortions because "we believe it is our duty to help women." The doctors realize that their admission makes them liable to punishment under France's archaic law prohibiting abortion except to save a woman's life. But they are undeterred. "We will stand trial together," they proclaim defiantly.

Two days after the manifesto appeared, 206 well-known French citizens --including four Nobel prizewinners --added their voices to the demand for reform. They issued a "charter" calling for abortion on several grounds, among them poor health, rape, incest and "grave social conditions."

Appearing only four weeks before the sharply contested national elections, the manifesto and charter have provoked bitter controversy across France. For the first time since the present abortion law was passed in 1920, chances for reform seem good.

The Gaullist government is not expected to buy the idea of liberalization without a fight. A few years ago a committee of the Public Health Ministry insisted that "the state can never legalize abortion." Government officials and their supporters, still of the same mind, at first did not respond to last week's declarations, hoping to forestall debate. They feared that inflamed public opinion could force a change in the government's stance, thus alienating Catholic voters. By midweek, however, the newspapers were so full of the controversy that silence became impossible. Public Health Minister Jean Foyer spoke out, calling the manifesto "excessive" and charging the reformers with political maneuvering and provocation.

A more positive response came, surprisingly, from a Gaullist Deputy, Jacques Sourdille of the Ardennes region, who announced that he would soon introduce a liberal abortion bill in the National Assembly. The fate of that measure depends partly on the election outcome. If the Gaullists are defeated, the bill--or a similar one--is almost certain to pass. If they win, Sourdille's permissive bill may be defeated, but public opinion is nevertheless expected to force at least some degree of reform.

The prospects for liberalization have been further enhanced by two recent events: the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing abortion on demand, and the case of Marie-Claire Chevalier, 15, who was arrested and tried in Paris because she had had an abortion after being raped (she was acquitted, but her mother was convicted of arranging the operation).

Frenchmen have also been stirred by the jailing in Belgium of respected Gynecologist Willy Peers for performing 300 abortions in his Namur clinic. The Belgians are even more aroused. A Peers defense committee has collected 200,000 signatures defending the "lay saint," as he is called, and 1,000 Belgians, including 300 doctors, have admitted that they have arranged, performed or undergone abortions.

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