The Associated Press reports:
Several thousand conservative activists of all ages marched through Paris on Sunday to protest a French bill that would give lesbian couples and single women access to in vitro fertilization and related procedures. “Where is my dad?” read some signs as traditional Catholic groups, far-right activists and other marchers weaved from the Luxembourg Garden to the Montparnasse neighborhood, passing by the French Senate.
Police guarded several Paris streets as the protest unfolded, notably to prevent tensions with LGBT activists holding a small counter-demonstration in support of the bill. Both were peaceful. The conservatives’ march was organized by the same groups that held mass demonstrations against France’s legalization of gay marriage in 2013, who are hoping their opposition to the IVF bill provides new fuel for their movement.
Leading the demonstration was La Manif Pour Tous, the viciously anti-LGBT group whose often violent anti-marriage protests were backed by the fascist National Front.
Thousands gathered in Paris on Sunday to protest against the government’s plan to let single women and lesbians become pregnant with fertility treatments, the country’s first major social reform since France legalised gay marriage in 2013 https://t.co/MYU2MeAOxz #IVF pic.twitter.com/sxVw8eDS7k
— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 6, 2019
Protest in France against IVF for lesbians – https://t.co/KAAVdsEHGv pic.twitter.com/qAkX9S0bZs
— Television Malta (@TelevisionMalta) October 7, 2019
In France, where Catholicism meets a bipartisan aversion to the “commodification” of the body, access to IVF is an issue of national identity, of who’s allowed to reproduce and transmit Frenchness. https://t.co/5cdSsll6Tz
— Rachel Donadio (@RachelDonadio) October 6, 2019
Macron’s government will likely expand access to IVF and assisted reproductive technologies (#PMA) for single women and lesbian couples, a major reform for France. Here’s my story, as conservative crowds gather to protest today: https://t.co/TSGMQ734Br
— James McAuley (@jameskmcauley) October 6, 2019