MOROCCO – New abortion law reform bill tabled while six people go on trial for clandestine abortions
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
June 5, 2019
It has been four years since the King called for abortion law reform and more than a year since a bill was tabled in the parliament to accomplish just that. Touria Alaoui Skalli, a specialist in obstetrics & gynaecology and a member of the PPS majority party in the House of Representatives, has not given up and decided to table a bill once again. Her previous attempt was presented to the Social Affairs Committee in the presence of the Minister of Health Anass Doukali on 19 June 2018, but was “withdrawn” two weeks later and found itself in a pile at the Justice Committee, “among a multitude of law reform proposals that will never be discussed”. “There are those who are open to progress, to democracy and rights, and others who are blinded by conservative and religious concepts and do not even want a debate to take place,” she said.
In defending the new bill, she called for the provision of safe abortions in order to eliminate the need for clandestine abortions. She said an attempt to reform the Penal Code would take many years, so she chose the legislative path, in hopes it may succeed.
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