Moroccan Authorities Arrest 4 in Illegal Abortion Ring, Including Doctors and Pilot

The case was revealed when two women, tried in an abortion case, revealed the names of their attending physicians, who tried to deny the facts before finally admitting them.

According to Morocco World News, the airline pilot, who has 24 years of experience, was responsible for importing Artotec, a drug used in planned abortion, but banned by the Moroccan health authorities since July 2018.

According to the doctor’s statements, who was assisted by two interns, these abortions had been practiced for three years in a private house in Marrakech, for a fee of at least 3,000 dhs per act.

In Morocco, the number of abortions is evolving in an alarming way, recalls the same source. Statistics from the Moroccan Association for Family Planning show 50,000 to 80,000 abortion cases recorded annually in Morocco, and 4.2% of maternal deaths are caused by clandestine abortion.

Despite the efforts of some associations to legalize abortion, Moroccan legislation continues to criminalize this act, and only allows it in the rare cases where it represents a danger to the mother’s health, fetal malformations, rape and incest, or when the mother has serious mental disorders.