Quote:
Switching to the ministry’s department of civil affairs in 1964, Veil
continued to push for gender parity in matters of parental control and
adoption rights. A decade later, her appointment as health minister in
the centre-right administration of President Valéry Giscard D’Estaing
paved the way for her biggest political test. She first battled to ease
access to contraception, then took on a hostile parliament to argue in
favour of a woman’s right to have a legal abortion.
“No woman resorts to an abortion with a light heart. One only has to
listen to them: it is always a tragedy,” Veil said in a now-famous
opening address on November 26, 1974, before a National Assembly almost
entirely composed of men. She added: “We can no longer shut our eyes to
the 300,000 abortions that each year mutilate the women of this country,
trample on its laws and humiliate or traumatise those who undergo them”
. . .
After her hour-long address, the minister endured a torrent of abuse
from members of her own centre-right coalition. One lawmaker claimed her
law would "each year kill twice as many people as the Hiroshima bomb”. A
second berated the Holocaust survivor for "choosing genocide". Another
still spoke of embryos "thrown into crematorium ovens".
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http://webdoc.france24.com/obituary-...ortion-france/
Quote:
President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences.
“May her example inspire our fellow countrymen, who will find in her the
best of France,” Macron said in a message to the family . . .
A staunch believer in European integration, she became the first elected
president of the European Parliament in 1979, a post she held for three
years.
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/simone-...tz-dies-at-89/
Quote:
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Abortion had been criminalized in France since the Napoleonic era (i.e.,
1810 Napoleonic Code). The new law, which took effect on Jan. 17, 1975,
made the procedure legal during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy (later
extended to 12), and required that the procedure be carried out by a
doctor at a hospital or a clinic. Girls under 18 were required to obtain
parental consent.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/w...veil-dead.html
This woman is getting a lot of praise from the liberal European press.
There's enough material in the life she led to see see a different narrative: one of tragedy.
Quote:
Base Details:
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap,"
I'd say — "I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die — in bed.
--Siegfried Sassoon
|
https://allpoetry.com/Base-Details
__________________
"It's a free country; you can say whatever you want."
--Old American Saying
(U.S. Postal Service stamp-- from 1977 Americana series which extols
freedom of speech and features a Speaker's Stand decorated with an
American Flag shield.)
Simone Veil, Ex-Minister Who Wrote France’s Abortion Law, Dies at 89
Jul 2, '17, 5:55 pm
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