Under an amendment to a current “Equality and Citizenship” law, owners of pro-life sites could face a 30,000 euro fine (about $33,600) and two years in prison, the same penalties that currently apply to “the offense of obstruction to abortion,” which has been illegal since 1993.
“Being hostile to abortion is an opinion protected by the civil liberties in France,” Laurence Rossignol, minister of families, children, and women’s rights, told Rue89. “But creating websites that have all official appearances to actually give biased information designed to deter, guilt, traumatize is not acceptable.”
One of the most popular targeted sites is ivg.net. (IVG is an acronym for “l’interruption volontaire de grossesse” or “voluntary interruption of pregnancy.”)
The site provides, among other things, help for “women who suffer from an abortion who finally find a place here to express their pain, ideologically denied in our country,” spokeswoman Marie Philippe told me. “These women receive support and the opportunity to be recognized and understood in their pain.”
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