France Debates Bill to Criminalize Online Pro-Life Advocacy

French lawmakers on Thursday will debate and vote on a Socialist government-backed draft law that could criminalize online pro-life advocacy. The legislation would extend the ambit of already-illegal “interference” in abortion to cover digital media.

Any website carrying material that is deemed to be “deliberately misleading, intimidating and/or exerting psychological or moral pressure” aimed at persuading a mother not to abort her child could face criminal charges, with punishments of two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros ($31,800).

A Catholic archbishop has called the move “a very serious attack on the principles of democracy.”

Supporters, including Families Minister Laurence Rossignol, say the goal is to prevent the dissemination of inaccurate or biased information, but critics view the wording as vague and dangerous.

“One could hardly be vaguer in the description,” argues Gregor Puppinck, director of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) – an international affiliate of the Virginia Beach-based American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) – which opposes the initiative.

“It is difficult to understand how the mere consulting of a website information page could obstruct the practice of an abortion or the information about it,” he said in an article Wednesday. “This vague crime is opened to the most extensive interpretations.”

Puppinck says that that clearly violates a French Constitutional Council ruling that legislation must define crimes “in terms precise and clear enough to exclude arbitrary decisions.”

France legalized abortion on demand until the end of the 12th week of pregnancy – or what is known officially as “voluntary interruption of pregnancy” (L’interruption volontaire de grossesse or IVG) – in 1975.

In 1993 another law was passed, creating the offense of hindering or interfering in an abortion – aimed at preventing pro-life activists from physically blocking access to, or occupying or otherwise targeting abortion facilities.

The law was later broadened to cover “moral and psychological pressure” aimed at dissuading abortion, and the legislation now under consideration seeks to widen that further into the digital realm.

In the new law’s crosshairs are websites like IVG.net, which offers counselling, practical support, and resources that include information about medical and psychological risks entailed in having an abortion.

The French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health’s official abortion website warns women about sites of that nature.

“Some websites that you find via search engines will tell you that they offer neutral and medical information but are actually edited by anti-abortion activists,” it says.

“They are sometimes hard to recognize but beware systematically sites and hotlines devoting a large part of their content to motherhood and supposed complications and injuries from abortion.”

The government site instead recommends a handful of – hardly neutral – websites, including that of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s French affiliate, Planning Familial, one run by a national association of abortion clinics, and a feminist blog that includes a searchable database of abortion clinics across France.

A posting published on the IVG.net website rejected the notion that it would deliberately mislead by offering disinformation.

“Our information and prevention efforts for women cannot be disparaged so rudely,” it said, protesting against what it called a “scandalous attempt to muzzle us and stigmatize us by undermining our moral integrity.”

Going further, IVG.net identified what it called “eight lies” on the government website, such as the assertion that there are no post-abortion psychological consequences.

(Update:  The French National Assembly on Thursday adopted the controversial bill, with the support of leftists and a majority of centrists, while right wing lawmakers opposed it. The measure now goes to the Senate. Family Minister Laurence Rossignol argued during the debate that “freedom of expression should not be confused with manipulating minds.”)

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