Editor’s note: Hong Eunie Journalist and writer living in Paris. She is the author of her three books, including The Birth of Korea Cool. Her views expressed here are her own.read more opinion On CNN.
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America still has significant global influence, but not necessarily in the way it would like. Not so long ago, many places in the world wanted to model themselves after America. But since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade nearly two years ago, America has become a role model for some countries… do not have to do.
French senator Laurence Rossignol told Le Monde newspaper that the Roe v. Wade decision was “shocking.” Rossignol, who is also deputy head of the Senate’s women’s rights delegation, added: “Since then, the fight for the constitutionalization of abortion is no longer a matter of underground radical feminist groups.”
Yesterday, by complete coincidence, I had a gynecological appointment in Paris (where I live most of the time). French parliamentarians were in the process of making France the first country in the world to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution. The vote was 780-72.
Given her profession as a doctor, I assumed she would be thinking about nothing but voting all day long. I asked her excitedly in French. “What do you think about abortion rights?”
“Sestofou, dear?” she said. (That’s crazy, right?) Yes, it is, I said. But it turns out we weren’t talking about the same thing. not at all. She continued, “Mr. Trump, he wants to overturn abortion rights. I can’t believe it.”
“Oh!” I said, “I wanted to say something about how France writes the right to abortion into its constitution.”
“So?” she said excitedly. “For me, that’s normal. This is exactly how it should be. I thought you were talking about America.” She shook her head. “When I was young, it was my dream to immigrate to America. Now? Not so much.”
If this conversation doesn’t show you how bad America’s image has become overseas, I don’t know what does.
The U.S. Constitution has been admired around the world since its inception. French politician Alexis de Tocqueville praised it in 1835 and in his seminal 1840 book Democracy in America. Countries as far afield as post-Spanish-American War Spain, pre-communist China, and several post-colonial African republics modeled their governments at least in part on the U.S. Constitution.
And it wasn’t that one document that was the subject of wonder. For much of the 20th century, after America “saved” the world from fascism and communism, this country became the gold standard for what an enlightened modern democracy should be. It was envied and imitated not only for its pop music and cigarettes and unparalleled coolness, but also for its political openness and progressiveness.
When Barack Obama was elected president of the United States in 2008, his French friends and colleagues were filled with awe and envy. My deskmate said bitterly: “You have a black president. France will I never have We have a black president. ”
When the #MeToo movement began in the United States, women in France found the courage to start their own #MeToo movement. When George Floyd was killed by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, the French drew inspiration from the Black Lives Matter movement and launched their own initiative in solidarity with American police officers. held a protest.
But when it comes to women’s rights, everything comes off. On the one hand, France did not legalize abortion until 1975, years later than the United States. Meanwhile, we learn that while French women were allowed to open their own checking accounts in her 1965, American women were not granted that right until her 1974. That’s terrifying until now.
Similarly, all bets are off when it comes to the Constitution. Yesterday’s proceedings took place at the Palace of Versailles, with members of both houses of Congress participating, as is customary for constitutional votes.
Since 1958, the beginning of the current Fifth Republic, this Unity Assembly has voted 24 times on constitutional amendments, of which 21 were approved and added to the French Constitution. There have been many more changes in the United States (27, according to the White House), spanning the entire history of the Constitution, well over two centuries.
I wish I could take the high road and say this is not a competition, except for the number of times I’ve heard Americans describe their Constitution as a “living, breathing thing.” Well, maybe to some extent. But it’s certainly more stubborn than people would like to believe.
Monday’s vote was broadcast live on television and was very emotional. Rossignol left behind the most quoted words of the day: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Et vous m’autoriserez à ajouter, sororité” It is “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. And today you have allowed me to add “Sorority.” ”
Claude Marhulet, a senator, doctor, and former head of Médecins Sans Frontières, said, in the words of the news site Publicsenat.fr, that when he spoke of the events that changed him forever, “Everyone… “It captured the hearts of people.” When he was a young doctor, two police officers dragged a teenage girl before him to determine whether she was guilty of infanticide. In fact, she had botched her abortion.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said “we have a moral responsibility” to all women who have “experienced physical pain” as a result of illegal abortions.Monday evening he Posted in X (Formerly Twitter), “As a man, I will never know the physical suffering of indescribable pain and mortal danger in a time when abortion was synonymous with secret shame.”
The Eiffel Tower also had a giant, glowing phrase that read: #MonCorpsMonChoix — My body, my choices. “#abortolegal”
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I tried to imagine what a similar case would look like in the US, but I can’t. It’s so hard to believe that my brain will explode if I think about it any further.
It is hard to imagine that the most iconic monument in this country would bear a pro-choice slogan raised by a public official rather than an activist group.
It’s hard to imagine a doctor-turned-politician publicly discussing a particular abortion in such detail, especially the discovery of a “dead newborn baby” by the girl’s neighbor.
Above all, I can’t imagine a male U.S. senator, much less a prime minister, admitting that he, as a man, has no idea about the suffering of women.
France still has problems with sexism and misogyny, too much to write about in a column. But compared to America today, France looks like a version of a feminist utopia that could only be dreamed up by Greta Gerwig’s Barbie world.