Abstract
In France, the law allows all women to have an abortion within thefourteen-weektime limit - -provided they have been referred to a doctor or midwife.Recourse to abortion is particularly safe, and is based on a medical procedure with no diagnostic or prognostic dimension, the details of which are laid down by the health authorities.
However, depending on the woman and, above all, the doctor to whom she makes her request, access to abortion varies considerably. Women may have an abortion more or less quickly, at a more or less advanced stage of pregnancy. They may be treated sympathetically or reprimanded for irresponsible behavior. They can choose to have an abortion by one method or another, to undergo a psychosocial interview or not, to adopt contraception... or they can be forced to do so. By showing that the effectiveness of the right to abortion depends on the organization of the healthcare system and the heterogeneous preferences and practices of doctors, this session will question the way in which the latter produce health inequalities, but also, more broadly, social and political inequalities.
