Moroccan women seek right to safe abortion

Dozens of women’s rights activists protested in Morocco to demand the right to abortion after the death of a 14-year-old girl who underwent a secret abortion operation in a rural village.

The protest, called for by the Federation of Women's Rights League, took place outside the Moroccan parliament to denounce the killing of Maryam in mid-September following a secret abortion that took place in the house of her rapist in a village on the outskirts of Midelt, said Federation Chairwoman Samira Mohyia in a statement on Thursday.

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“Those who have undergone secret abortions are women who live in difficult situations. They take toxic substances, which leads to their death or to postpartum disabilities. The time has come to decriminalize abortion and legalize it by issuing a law protecting the health and dignity of women and girls in Morocco,” she said.

The demonstration coincides with the International Safe Abortion Day, which falls on September 28.

Ghizlan Mamouni, lawyer and defender of women's and human rights in Morocco, called for reviewing and amending the criminal code, particularly the chapters that criminalize abortion. She also called for imposing harsher penalties against those who are involved in rape crimes.

The number of secret abortions in Morocco ranges from 50,000 to 80,000 cases annually, with an average of 200 operations per day in accordance with data from the Moroccan Association for the Fight Against Clandestine Abortion (AMLAC), the statement said. Secret abortions have been the cause of 4.2% to 5.5% of deaths of women and girls, the data revealed.

As per Article 454, any woman who deliberately has an abortion herself, or attempts to do so, or accepts to have an abortion, or consents to use what she was given to do so, shall be punishable by six months to two years in prison and a fine.

Abortion has been a matter of debate in Morocco since March 2015 when King Mohammed VI ordered the formation of a committee to study this issue. Two months later, the committee recommended making amendments allowing abortion if pregnancy poses a threat to the mother's life, or resulted from rape and incest, and in case of serious congenital malformations and difficult diseases that threaten the fetus, AFP reported in 2019. Although the government approved the new draft law in 2016, it is still on hold.