Question 28374 — voluntary termination of pregnancy

Summary

Mr. Guillaume Gouffier-Cha draws the attention of the Minister of Solidarity and Health to the use of medical abortion during the confinement period. Several professionals in the voluntary termination of pregnancy published, on Tuesday March 31, 2020, an article calling on the Government to take exceptional measures during this exceptional period on the protection of women and access to abortion. With the reorganization of all health services for the treatment of patients with covid-19, confinement and its corollary, the limitation of travel on French territory and abroad, 16,000 women are and will be in a situation of distress. Abortion “is always a tragedy and it will always remain a tragedy.” These words, which Simone Veil, then Minister of Health, uttered on November 24, 1974, resonate still fair today and the current health crisis must not lead France to regress on equality between women and men, and in particular on their access to health. During questions to the Government in the Senate on April 1, 2020, the Minister of Solidarity and Health explained that the increase in the period from five to seven weeks of pregnancy for voluntary terminations of pregnancy by medication was complex due to the necessary cold storage of the abortion pill. Indeed, in France the medicinal method is based on the combination of the antiprogesterone mifepristone and a prostaglandin, gemeprost, which necessarily requires freezing. However, some professionals use another prostaglandin, misoprostol contained in a stable tablet which is stored at room temperature. This technique would then make it possible to carry out abortions at home rather than surgically, if the current legal deadline is exceeded. This option, validated by both the World Health Organization and the High Health Authority, presents no particular danger. He then asks him if the use of such drugs, strictly respecting the required temperature ranges, would allow the increase in the time of two weeks requested by all professionals, both medical and associative, so as not to add to the feelings of sadness and shame that of being an outlaw.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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