March 31, 2023
Othman Regragui
Summary
In Morocco, abortion is criminalized except to safeguard a woman’s life and health. But the current legal framework, inherited from the French Protectorate (1912-56), no longer properly reflects the social reality of contemporary Morocco, where more than 200,000 clandestine abortions are carried out every year. In 2015, a consultative commission appointed by King Mohammed VI proposed widening the legal parameters for pregnancy termination to include rape, incest, and fetal impairment. Yet the commission rejected progressive Islamic jurisprudence that would have authorized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, and it failed to address the existing constraints for Moroccan women to access the procedure. Due to political inertia, Penal Code amendments that would have loosened the country’s strict abortion laws have stalled in the parliament for nearly seven years and successive governments failed to integrate the issue into a fully-fledged reproductive framework including other entangled and pressing issues such as contraception and sexual education. The recent death of a 14-year-old girl following a botched “back alley” abortion at the house of her abuser is the latest reminder of the need to better protect women’s reproductive rights in the North African country. This tragedy should also push the authorities to address the socio-legal drivers behind unwanted pregnancies — such as unduly light punishments for sexual crimes, systemic discrimination against single mothers, and the exploitation of underage girls working as house servants — and recognize these factors as critical impediments to women’s reproductive rights.
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