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Rabat – Elements of the anti-gang brigade in the city of Meknes arrested on April 27 a doctor working in the private sector and his assistant for their alleged involvement in a case of illegal abortion on a minor.
The defendants, reported to be aged 71 and 64 respectively, were arrested in a private clinic in Meknes in the act of attempting illegal abortion on a 15-year-old minor in the presence of her mother and a woman they know, according to a security source.
The doctor and his assistant were placed under police custody, while the minor, her mother, and the woman who accompanied them were subjected to investigation carried out under the supervision of the public prosecutor’s office.
Last year, while several associations and activists were calling for reform to the country’s abortion law, including access to safe and legal abortion, a 14-year-old girl lost her life to a “secret abortion” in the town of Midelt, 200 kilometers south of Fez.
The Spring of Dignity association called for a “radical and comprehensive” reform of Moroccan criminal law. It also campaigned for decriminalizing “medical abortion” and regulating it within a public health code in accordance with the World Health Organization’s recommendations.
Read also: Moroccan Activists Demand Decriminalization of Extramarital Relations
Cases, where abortion can be legally practiced in Morocco, are detailed in Article 453 of the Moroccan penal code. To the dismay of rights activists and advocacy groups, however, this article stipulates that abortion is only permissible in Morocco if the mother’s health is in danger, and with the husband’s permission.
Meanwhile, Article 490 of the Moroccan Penal Code stipulates that “… persons from opposite gender who are not legally married and have sexual relations, are punishable by imprisonment for one month to one year.”
Earlier this month, some Moroccan activists including politicians, doctors, and lawyers published a document on the need for protecting fundamental freedoms, urging the Moroccan government to decriminalize extramarital relations.
In the course of their 85-page document, the panel sought to reform a series of articles in the Constitution relating to the Penal Code and the Family Code, such as abolishing the death penalty, decriminalizing abortion, and replacing jail sentences for blasphemy against God or the prophets with monetary fines.
