Government and right wing against reproductive rights
SINCE 1974, reimbursement for French women using contraception has been a right recognized by law, as has the possibility of abortion up to the tenth week of pregnancy.
Seventeen years later, however, it is not clear that this law is being applied; while nearly 4 million women take the pill, 2 million do so in a form which is not, or is no longer,
Despite the promises of the Prime Minister, Edith Cresson, at the end of November 1991, on the impending reimbursement of two supplementary pills', and the declarations of the
Secretary of State responsible for women's rights, Veronique
Neierzt, the negligence of the government and the upsurge of fundamentalist and reactionary activists of all kinds present grave threats to the right to choose and to women's health.
December 9, 1991 • #218 International Viewpoint reimbursed. SOPHIE MASSOURI
S INCE 1984, a growing number
of new contraceptive pills have not been covered by the Social Security, whereas the cost of some of the older brands is no longer reimbursed. Why? The pharmaceutical laboratories are playing upon the ambiguity of the law, which says that "contraception must be reimbursed" without giving the State the means to demand its reimbursement. Thus, the pills of the new generation, with smaller dosages of strogen (responsible for secondary effects on women, and notably for cardiovascular illness), and using new progestatives, which are presented as less harmful to women's health, are not reimbursed
The argument put forward by the laboratories in order to demand an exorbitant price is controversial; some specialists argue that it has not been shown that the new pills reduce significantly these "secondary effects".
Why do the laboratories pursue this policy? In France, the prices of drugs which are not reimbursed are free, contrary to those of reimbursed medicaments, which are fixed and controlled by the authorities. It has been clear for a decade that the manufacturers prefer non-reimbursement to a price which they consider too low. According to several studies the consumption of contraceptives does not seem to depend on whether they are covered by the Social Security.
How could it be otherwise, when the pill is the primary means of contraception used by women one woman in three takes the pill) and when, given the profusion of pills available, they only very rarely have the means to insist that their doctor prescribe this or that pill, in accordance with their needs and above all with its cost. Laboratories seek maximum profits
Obviously, laboratories will always seek to maximize their profits and there is no reason why they should behave differently on the question of contraception. What is more serious is the failure of the government to apply a law which is in practice held up to ridicule.
But this reffects the policy pursued by the Socialist government. Thus, the management of information and planning centres, which are often the sole sources of information for young people and for a majority of women, has, as a result of the policy of decentralization, initiated since 1983, been transferred to regional councils, accentuating social disparities, and partially threatening their existence.
The government's progressive disengagement, like its austerity policy in the field of health, as much in the provision of medicaments as in the hospitals (suppression of hospital beds, reduction of workforce, and so on)' presents an insidious challenge to the right of women to
WOMEN: France freely choose maternity, instituting on this question, as on the question of health in general, a two tier system — on the one hand women who can pay, on the other those who cannot.
This policy is being implemented in a degraded social and economic context, in which the influence of fundamentalist and far right groups - like Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, predicted to take 2530% of the vote at the next regional elections in March 1992 — is growing.
Taking the offensive on the question of abortion, these far right groups — primarily The Truce of God and SOS Tout-Petits - even if they organize few people, are gradually extending their influence through increased media coverage, manipulation and infiltration in broad sectors of society, and so on.3
For nearly two years now, some of these groups, under the inspiration of Operation Rescue in the United States, have been attacking abortion centres.* Some prefer to sing hymns outside the centres and hospitals or to distribute leaflets denouncing the crime which abortion represents in their eyes; others enter the operating theatres, desterilizing the materials and chaining 1. One of these two pills, Trinordiol, which represents alone nearly 17% of the market, was still covered by Social Security until six months ago 2. See /V 216. 3. Jean-Marie Le Pen, for example, demanded a minute's silence, during his demonstration on May 1, 1991, "in memory of the millions of French children murdered by the Veil-Chirac abortion law" 4. Over the past two years, 30 attacks have been reported — in December 1990, a group of feminists, aware of the intentions of one of these groups to invade a Paris hospital, intervened to stop them entering the hospital and distributed leaflets demanding that the law be 21 respected (free access to the abortion centres, as well as to contraception, for all women).
International Viewpoint #218 • December 9, 1991
FRANCE / SPANISH STATE themselves to the operating tables. Everywhere the same goal; to create a feeling of terror among women who come for an abortion, and above all a feeling of guilt.
The government has remained largely silent on all this. Despite the complaints brought by hospital directors and the testimony of nurses, the attackers have not been bought to justice.
It is perhaps not by chance that the government seems still less prompt to denounce these commando raids than to begin the policy of reimbursement for the two new pills. Its health policy, involving a hospital reform dictated by the logic of profitability and of decentralization, will lead to a reduction of the operating capacities of the abortion centres, when it does not simply lead to their closure; denouncing the laboratories enables it to avoid explaining its policy.
Since the end of 1990, a united coordination bringing together women's groups, trade unions, political parties and associations, including the French Movement for Family Planning (MFPF), has been established to mobilize public opin1on around this question and make the government face its responsibilities — a national petition was launched in June 1991, with committees being set up in various cities.
On November 30, 1991, there will be a national day of action in preparation for general assemblies on the right to choose on January 18-19, 1992, and, of course, for a mobilization on March 8, 1992, International Women's Day. * save a project on the verge of the collapse. On the contrary, during their 20 years of existence each of these organizations has built solid bases, deeply rooted in society. While their forces are still modest compared with what is objectively necessary, the fusion represents a conscious effort to unite forces on the basis of broadly shared concrete agreements, on which the militants of these two organizations have had the time to reflect, in key areas like the trade union, feminist and ecological movements, in opposition to dogmatism and Stalinism and also, very importantly, on the type of organization it is necessary to build today (democratic, pluralist, centralized) and on the model of society sought.
Obviously, all this does not mean that, in the new organization, differences might not emerge "on various theoretical questions, in conceptions on revolutionary perspectives, the analyses of reality, this or that current or