One million women in France have abortions every year. Condemned to secrecy, they do so in dangerous conditions, while under medical supervision, this is one of the simplest procedures. Society is silencing these millions of women. I declare that I am one of them. I declare that I have had an abortion. Just as we demand free access to contraception, we demand the freedom to have an abortion. -Simone de Beauvoir, 1971
Three hundred and forty-three signatures were appended to the “manifesto”: 343 French women and citizens who risked their careers and reputations by publicly confessing to having had an illegal abortion. The act of civil disobedience—now known as the “Manifesto of the 343”—was a non-violent refusal to obey a country’s law. It would prove to be one of the bravest acts toward achieving French women’s reproductive rights.
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