Editorial - The right to free choice

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Once again this year, Luxembourg's day of action for women's rights, renamed the "feminist march", drew large numbers of women and also men. It was an opportunity to celebrate a very recent victory: the first vote by the Chamber of Deputies to enshrine the "freedom to have an abortion" in the Constitution – although a second vote will still be required before the summer.

It would certainly have been preferable to guarantee the "right to an abortion", but that was the price of political consensus. Legally, it changes nothing, we are assured. Symbolically, the impression is not the same. For too long, wordplay has surrounded abortion. First came "decriminalisation", instead of "legalisation". Now there is 'freedom', rather than recognition of a fundamental right. This is the kind of nuance and caution that casts doubt on the absence of any debate on abortion in Luxembourg.

Officially, no one is calling it into question. But the positions of the various parties have clearly shown that some people are still uneasy about it. From the procrastination of the CSV to the abstentions, not to mention the absentees in the Chamber on Tuesday – it takes little to convince you that the legal arguments against enshrining abortion in the Constitution (poorly) conceal a genuine opposition to abortion.

And that's precisely why it was so important to go through with this initiative, endorsed by Marc Baum (déi Lénk) – yet another major societal advance supported by the opposition in the face of a government dominated by the CSV, like the one on the right to euthanasia in 2008 defended by Lydie Err (LSAP) and Jean Huss (déi gréng). The American precedent – the major Roe vs Wade case derailed by a Supreme Court in thrall to the ultraconservative right – rightly acted as an electroshock.