Morocco’s Abortion Reform Efforts in Spotlight After US Supreme Court Ruling

To this question, Chafik Chraibi, president of the Moroccan Association for the Fight against Clandestine Abortion (AMLAC), answers in the affirmative. In Morocco, the government had initiated a 2016 bill bringing a relaxation of the law prohibiting and penalizing voluntary termination of pregnancy (VTP) which is stalling. But the project could see progress in the era of the Aziz Akhannouch government. The subject was also at the heart of an audience that Abdellatif Ouahbi, Minister of Justice, recently granted to the president of AMLAC, during which the latter proposed the revision of Article 453 of the Penal Code, reports La Vie éco. This article only takes into account the physical health of the woman and the child.

"We believe that Morocco should align with the definition adopted by the World Health Organization, which encompasses both physical and mental and social well-being," emphasizes Dr. Chafik Chraibi. This proposal would have received the approval of the minister. "The minister informed us, during our last meeting, that the extension of the conditions for legalizing abortion is under study," said the president of AMLAC.

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In Morocco, abortion is punishable by six months to five years in prison. Only the woman whose life is in danger is allowed to have an abortion. Between 600 and 800 pregnancy terminations are illegally performed every day in the kingdom, according to AMLAC. Some are carried out by herbalists for 300 DH, while others are done in clinics and gynecology offices for 4,000 or even 10,000 DH.