Having children isn’t always a happy incident for some women or families, this fact emanates from many reasons; some families don’t like to have children out of their plans, others don’t accept this matter due to some genetic or inherited family diseases, others don’t like to bear more financial and social responsibilities, on one hand.
On the other hand, some women don’t like to have children because they care about their bodily health and curving, others don’t like to have children because they aren’t yet sure that they are with the right man.
Moreover, children don’t only come as a result of legitimate relationships, some come out of adultery or fornication and they should be smashed, to hide the crime and its following. Children also might come out of raping and they will be always a shame for the mother and the family as well as being a memorial of a severe aggression against the mother, thus they should be removed.
Due to the abovementioned grounds, some women and families resort to abortion as a vital means to get rid of the embryo at an early stage although women become sometimes under severe risk. Some women think that it’s their eternal right to save or unsave the embryo; others are forced by their husbands or families to go for abortion to avoid social shame.
The Egyptian law refused to allow for women to go for abortion either by themselves, or under supervision of doctors, pharmacists or by a midwife. The Egyptian penal code 58/1937 stipulated in article 261 that “ whoever causes the miscarriage of a pregnant woman by giving her medicines or using methods leading to abortion, or by indicating them to her, whether with or without her consent, shall be punished with detention”.
It’s apparent that the Egyptian law imposed a protection for the embryo irrespective of the reasons behind abortion and disregarding any considerations to get rid of the embryo. Also the Egyptian law doesn’t matter who made the abortion or how is it made by medication, surgery or by using any method and abortion is a crime punished by detention whether the mother consented or not.
Article 262 of the penal code pursued another approach to abortion, as it stipulated that “ A woman who accepts to use the medicines although she knows about them, or agrees to use the aforementioned methods or enables another to use these methods for her, and as a result miscarriage occurs, shall be punished with the aforementioned penalty.
Article 263 escalated the penalty if the person who caused the abortion is a physician or pharmacist or a midwife as it stipulated that “If the person causing abortion is a physician, surgeon, pharmacist or a midwife, he/she will be punished by detention with hard labour”.
It is worth mentioning that failure attempt to miscarriage or abortion isn’t punished, the law only punishes actual miscarriages, article 264 of the penal code stipulated that “No penalty shall be imposed on attempted miscarriage”. But this doesn’t mean that if abortion was made without the consent of a mother that she can’t sue for harmful action as well as compensations.
It’s now clear that the Egyptian law forbids abortion, but this doesn’t mean that abortion isn’t done in Egypt. Some women take the risk and have an abortion by some primitive methods or go for unlicensed clinics to do it. Thus there had been a special call in 2007 to allow for women who had embryos out of fornication or rape to miscarriage them, this call was based upon a fatwa from the grand imam of AlAzhar who allowed for miscarriage of foetus resulting from rape, but this call was refused.
There is a need to review such articles dealing with abortion as some medical urgency that should be interfered with to save the mother by sacrificing the embryo or getting rid of the embryo due to a medical assurance that it is defected and it will suffer forever. The Egyptian legislator should clarify some issues related to the age of the embryo when abortion can be considered a crime or not, parties who should consent to abortion, parties who are licensed to perform abortion surgeries or give medications and medical or non-medical causes that can be valid reason for abortion.
