The right to choose

“Moroccan women are suffering a tragic plight,” Chafik Chraïbi, the head of the gynaecology-obstetrics department and director of the maternity ward at Les Orangers Hospital in Rabat, says about illegal abortions in his country. “Families and society shun the victims of backstreet abortionists. This is a tragedy for Moroccan women. I couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to do something.” For 30 years, Dr. Chraïbi, a judge’s son born in Fez in 1956, has campaigned to legalise abortion in a country where one-third of pregnancies are unwanted and the estimated number of illegal abortions is put at 600 to 800 a day. After the ? rst congress of the Association marocaine de lutte contre l’avortement clandestin (Moroccan Association Against Illegal Abortion, Amlac), which he organised with specialists, clerics, legal experts and politicians in March 2015, Mohammed VI decided to legalise abortion in cases of rape, incest or malformation of the foetus. “This is a ? rst step forward,” says Dr. Chraïbi. “Now, civil society, the government and the media must carry out extensive awareness-raising work to challenge male domination.”