French Socialists quite clearly don’t understand how their actions in the National Assembly are likely to come back to haunt them before too many years have passed, if the Senate doesn’t have the sense to reel them in:
The French National Assembly has voted to approve a bill that would outlaw some pro-life websites. The Socialist government wants to criminalise sites which it says “exert psychological or moral pressure” on women not to abort. The proposed offence would be punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment and a €30,000 fine.
Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseille, president of the French bishops’ conference, has written to President François Hollande expressing his concern about the bill. Archbishop Pontier urged Hollande to not allow the bill’s passage, calling it a “serious infringement of democratic principles”.
French law already prevents pro-lifers from demonstrating outside abortion clinics. Supporters of the bill argue that pro-life tactics have now moved online and must be stopped.
The bill will now need to pass through the French senate, which blocked the legislation earlier this year.
Dominique Tian, MP for Les Républicains, said there was a “very heavy atmosphere in parliament” and accused the government of “attacking freedom of expression”. He said the government’s proposals were “dangerous for democracy and probably anti-constitutional”, and that his party would do all it could to stop them.
I mean, it’s not like such a law would ever be used to criminalize sites that advocate alternative sexual preferences, or practices, or for that matter, Marxian economics, right? Now, I understand the principle of MPAI and I know that socialists tend to have a hard time anticipating logical consequences, but this is indicative of a short time-preference to an extent one seldom sees outside of primitive tribes that can’t count to five.