Lucienne Herman-Michielsens, born Lucienne Michielsens, was born on 26 March 1926, in Ghent. She was the only daughter of Gaston Michielsens, and Adeline Millecam a teacher. Her father dies when she is only 4 years old. At first she follows in the footsteps of her mother and becomes a teacher, but then she takes a year leave, during which she catches up with six years of general education and enters the University of Ghent to study law. Besides law she also obtains a licentiate in criminology and notary. Her dream however is to become a journalist, not a lawyer.

During her time at the university, she becomes acquainted with politics and meets, among others, the young politician Willy De Clercq. She became a convinced free-thinker and a liberal. After she graduated from university, she marries Dr. Jacques Herman and first decided for a government career, in order to allow her to combine her work with her family. The next fourteen years, she will devote all her time to her work and her family, a period she will later refer to as her 'dark middle ages’.

Things change, when in 1970 Willy De Clercq contacts her because he is searching for a new president of the Commission of PVV-women. In 1970 Lucienne becomes national President of the liberal woman federation. In the meantime, she also was elected as a city Council member in Ghent a member of the “Comission for the poor” (COO: Centrum voor Openbare Onderstand). When the PVV was planning for an ethical congress in 1972, she lead a working party of women in which items such as contraception, abortion, equality of men and women on inheritance, parental power and divorce were being discussed. The women soon came to an agreement on these issues, but the male party members regarded these, at the time still controversial, issues not suitable for a political congress. When the PVV enters the government six months later, all the conclusion of the working party was added to the coalition agreement. During the next government period, these items will be considered by the participating political parties.

When 1975 was proclaimed the international year of the woman, Lucienne Herman-Michielsens became President of the Belgian committee, together with the Walloon Emilienne Brunfaut. For Lucienne a proper basis for a marriage settlement was the basis for equal rights for both men and women, and it was the centerpiece of her inaugural speech of the year of the woman. The law on marriage settlement was approved in June 1976.

In 1977 she becomes a senator, and after a former proposal for the legislation of abortion is rejected, she proposes a new one herself. Several Pro-life organizations oppose her initiative, such a Pro Vita, the Belgian Christian Democrats, and the Flemish Nationalists. Despite this opposition she is elected woman of the year in 1989 by the readers of the popular weekly magazine HUMO, the Walloon Women Council, and she is elected politician of the year by the readers of Knack magazine.

The abortion law is accepted by a majority of the Belgian parliament on 29 March 1990, and appears in the Bulletin of Acts, Orders and Decrees on 5 April 1990.

Except for the equality of man and woman and the right for abortion for women, Lucienne Herman-Michielsens has also fought for the guarantee of philosophical pluralism by the law. After proposals on pluralism failed in June 1970, which have recognized of Islam but not of the free-thinking, a law was passed on 23 January1981.

When her health started to fail, because she suffered from diabetes, which caused blindness and renal failure, she decided to resign in 1991 at the peak of her political career. Lucienne died on 22 January 1922.

Peter Van Osta