RABAT: She looks down in disgust, her hands waving in angst as one of the speakers on the sidelines of a Moroccan conference on abortion. Fatima Chakrullah is a 34-year-old medical doctor who spent 10 years working in French hospitals. Her frustration is evident. “We must get beyond these stupid arguments of why or why not women should or shouldn't be allowed to have an abortion,” she says on the sidelines of the meeting, which saw government officials, women and religious leaders, jurists and doctors come together to discuss abortion in the North African country. The goal was to come to agreement on the use of clandestine abortions in the country. For Chakrullah, the dialogue was missing the point. “They talk about unwanted pregnancies instead of the mother, her health and their choices. It is simply hard, here in Morocco and elsewhere to deal with these kinds of people,” she said. Abortion is banned in Morocco except in rare cases where the mothers life is at risk. According to statistics, there are approximately 600 to 800 abortions daily in Morocco with proper medical care, while another 200 occur in back alleyways and unsanitary conditions. Public outcry met the publishing of the statistics by Morocco's Family Planning Association last year. According to the numbers, the majority of abortions are among married women and “are carried out among the poorest of people,” Moroccan Association to Combat Clandestine Abortion (AMLAC) said. Article 449 of the Moroccan penal code hands out jail terms of between six months and two years against both “the abortionist and the woman who has the abortion, as well as intermediaries, except when it is a matter of saving the health or the life of the mother.” Chakrullah said that despite these restrictions and possible jail time, abortion is largely tolerated in the country, “because it is a women's right and doctors are willing to keep women's health safe.” AMLAC officials said they were “not calling for the legalization of abortion, but we would like the law to authorize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in certain cases such as rape, incest, malformations of the fetus and psychiatric pathologies.” In Islam, abortion is largely seen as being permissible early in a pregnancy, said Chakrullah, who argued that it is “ironic that the Islamists seem to pick and choose what is ‘Islamic' and what is not if it suits their conservative agenda.” The Islamist Justice and Development Party has come out against any changes to the abortion legislation. One party official said on the sidelines of the conference that “to legalize abortion would be to legalize women to do what they want and give them the chance to dishonor their families.” For Chakrullah and other female doctors, the difficulty is talking with people who will not have their minds changed or discuss the issue with tolerance and understanding. “There are so many cases where a woman would not want to have a child at a specific time. People need to stop discussing this issue as if it is something that can be imposed on women. They tell me I am too Western, but that is ridiculous. All I want is for a woman to choose her own destiny, not the government,” she added. BM
