Simone Veil Grand-croix DBE (née Jacob; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women's rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion, today known as Veil Act (French: Loi Veil). From 1998 to 2007, she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority.