User:Largoplazo/343

The Manifesto of the 343 (French: le manifeste des 343), also known as the "Manifesto of the 343 Sluts" was a declaration that appeared in the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur on April 5, 1971, and that was signed by 343 women admitting to having had an abortion, thereby exposing themselves to criminal prosecution.

The text
The manifest began:

One million women in France have an abortion every year.

Condemned to secrecy, they have them in dangerous conditions when this procedure, performed under medical supervision,is one of the simplest.

These women are veiled in silence.

I declare that I am one of them. I have had an abortion.

Just as we demand free access to birth control, we demand the freedom to have an abortion.

Underneath were 343 signatures, including those of such noted women as Françoise d'Eaubonne, Simone de Beauvoir, Christine Delphy, Catherine Deneuve, Marguerite Duras, Françoise Fabian, Brigitte Fontaine, Gisèle Halimi, Bernadette Lafont, Violette Leduc, Ariane Mnouchkine, Jeanne Moreau, Marie Pillet (Julie Delpy's mother), Marie-France Pisier, Micheline Presle, Marthe Robert, Yvette Roudy, Françoise Sagan, Delphine Seyrig, Nadine Trintignant, Agnès Varda, Marina Vlady, Anne Wiazemsky, and Monique Wittig.

Impact
The week after the manifesto appeared, the front page of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo carried a drawing attacking male politicians with the question "Who impregnated these 343 sluts?" This drawing by Cabu gave the manifesto its nickname.

This is one of the most widely known examples of civil disobedience in France. It was the inspiration for a 1973 manifesto by 331 doctors declaring their support for abortion rights. It contributed above all to the adoption, in December 1974&#8211;January 1975, to the "Veil law", named for the writer Simone Veil, that repealed the penalty for voluntarily terminating a pregnancy during the first ten weeks (later extended to twelve weeks).

In 2008, the manifesto was also the inspiration for the Home Birth Manifesto.