Simone Veil
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- Simone Veil should not be confused with Simone Weil, a French philosopher.
Simone Veil (born Simone Annie Jacob, July 13, 1927) is a French lawyer and politician who currently serves as a member of the Constitutional Council of France.
Veil was born the daughter of a Jewish architect in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. In March 1944, Veil's family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she would remain until the camp's January 27, 1945 liberation. Only Veil and her sister survived the internment. Veil returned to speak at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.
Having obtained her baccalauréat in 1943 before being deported, she began the study of law and political science, where she met her future husband Antoine Veil.
The couple married on October 26, 1946, and have three sons.
From 1974 to 1979 she was Minister of Health in the governments of prime ministers Jacques Chirac and Raymond Barre. Veil was the first woman cabinet minister in French history. She is remembered for pushing forward laws:
- making access to contraception easier (December 4, 1974) - the sale of contraceptives such as the contraceptive pill had been made legal in 1967;
- legalizing abortion (January 17, 1975), her hardest political fight, and the one for which she is best-known.
- She also served as President of the European Parliament after the parliament was directly elected for the first time in 1979.
- After many years in the European Parliament she returned to French government from 1993-1995 when she was Minister of State for Social Affairs, Health and Towns during the Premiership of Édouard Balladur.
- In 1998, she was appointed to the Constitutional Council. In 2005, she put herself briefly on leave from the Council in order to campaign in favour of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. This action was criticized, because it seems to contradict the legal provisions that members of the council should keep a distance from partisan politics: the independence and impartiality of the council would be jeopardized, critics said, if members can put themselves "on leave" in order to campaign for such or such project.
The New York based Union of Orthodox Rabbis heavily criticized Veil's presence at the commemoration of Auschwitz's liberation in 2005, as Veil - the orthodox rabbis said - was to be held responsible for a mass murder of human life far exceeding that of the German National Socialists by legalizing and promoting abortion.
In 2005 she was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation.
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