[Music] good morning I'm Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday Legal following the amazing success uh of the previous episode with Clotilde Iaia we had to invite her again and we have decided this time that we will do a monthly legal update or legal review that we will uh pick up one of the decisions or one of the laws one of the legal topics in general and we will talk about good morning and thank you very much for coming back good morning Ahmed how are you today I'm very good thank you very much amazing did I ask you last time what is your coffee what is my coffee no you didn't ask me what's your morning drink oh I I like Americano filter coffee like my Italian origin so I'm not a fan of espresso a bit too strong for me so I prepare it every morning can can you maybe give me this information why is an Italian original coffee is called Americano you know that Italians don't produce not even one single grain of coffee right so but somehow we became famous for coffee I think that's a lot has says a lot about our marketing skills and the ability of transforming a product into something that I so much related to our culture I mean and the Grande Right There is a grande and the ventti Starbucks everything is Italian Cofe exactly but really no no idea no idea it's one of those Mysteries unsolvable Mysteries today I want to discuss with you the cabinet resolution number 44 of the Year 24 which is determining the cases of uh the permissible abortions abortions is a very sensitive topic and I would like to unlock it with you I was really impressed by this new cabinet decision um I found it's really amazing and you know and considering what is going on in other countries in both in Europe and the United States and how this topic has been dividing uh the masses and polarizing opinions I do think that this cabinet decision is somehow managed successfully to find a medium ground both women can feel protected but also the right to life is protected I think they Str they they were able to uh Str a balance between those two human rights what did you think about it I I think it's amazing because it doesn't really open the door unreasonably to a certain practice but in in my personal opinion regulating everything is maybe is much better that because if you leave some topics without enough regulations and without thinking thoroughly of them opens the door to Illegal practices and to even misuse so I think it is very nice and when I was reading decree in Arabic and in English I felt like wow there's a lot of thought put into it and I I really liked it I think they really really thought this true and I think they were very successful to find as you said a balance I just want to read one thing out of the cabinet decision cuz I think everyone has been focusing you know we've seen a lot of press already press releases as well as interviews of colleagues esteemed colleagues on the subject but I think what I really liked about this uh decision was the the objectives of this decision this decisions aims at achieving the following two objectives one is preserving women's health and safety as well as the stability of society by regulating some cases of permissible abortion and stating their conditions and controls and the procedures related there too so why I want to kind of pause one second on this first objective of the regulation one it recognizes the necessity of protecting women's safety two it recognizes that safety for women helps General Society to be be more stable therefore recognizing the women's you know important role within the stability General stability of a society and the second objective of course is what you mentioned reducing illegal practices which as we know they are very dangerous for women easily cause you know death substantially put women at risk of severe complications um as well as creating an illegal Market that can't be regulated and therefore other consequences like money laundering and so forth and so on so the two objective expression I think of a very illuminated and Brilliant government that decided to address this issue and try to strike a balance between different important Society goals which is the protection of women stability of society and avoiding illegal consequences as well as a lot more you know much harder complications for women that must undergo this uh procedure what did you think about this I totally agree with you one of the if if you ask me about one article that really attract my attention was the thinking behind how to build and construct the executive committee which is going to make the decisions they have considered a doctor a physician some someone who is an expert to make sure that the cases are studied uh they have made sure a psychologist is there to think of the mental health and the me mental effect of such occasion and the prosecutor thinking of the legal aspect of it and the three parties have to cooperate and make a study and a decision within a very short time limit considering the CV of the situation and I have to do it in five days in my opinion this is amazing if I would have given the committee of three only to doctors or a committee of three only to prosecutors there would would have been um imbalance and considering the mental Factor as well and having a psychologist in the room to discuss between the physician and the legal the lawmaker the the legal person just to understand that The Human Side as well have to be considered considering the fact that mental health can be one of the threat of someone's you know wellbe and life right absolutely because mental health also can be one of the reasons that you might prioritize the Mother Health against one the one of uh the fetus that has not you know or Bor child I really appreciated that the other thing that I thought about this process is decision that they have to make the five days right uh this also allows doctor in my opinion to feel safer in regards to potential responsibility or criminal liability related to performing an abortion cuz once the uh permit has been issued then at the very least doctors and health facilities that are authorized to perform such practices will be in a better position from a legal standpoint to defend themselves and their their medical decision my only concern with that is when there is a reason that when there is a medical emergency whereby 5 days won't be sufficient to obtain uh such a decision from the committee because there can be cases where you have to make a swift decision in a matter of minutes about saving the life of the baby or the life of the mother my idea was that probably in those cases doctors will have to go back to General SCH 16 which provides for other cases in which of course doctors can or are allowed to perform an abortion of course the life of pregnant women so I would imagine that that those scenarios will be treated under article 16 so there's still of course always some risk connected with making you know a medical decision and I think it comes with the territory as lawyers too we know that sometimes we have to provide the best advice possible we can't always guarantee that the outcome right work will be positive for our clients we can only provide the best possible professional service and then of course we go into the article four I think which is I think most uh appreciated articles of this law generally because it does consent so it adds some cases to the ones that were previously just provided under under article 16 which exactly as we were saying before Limited at the time where abortion could be practiced when that meant that was required to save uh women's life I understand that the new cabinet decision have mentioned three uh occasions uh that the abortion will be permissible the first one will be what can be easily described as rape yes and whether with non-consensual uh decision or with a yeah I would say yeah they say with a will that in English it says with a female against her will without her consent or by her will but such will is not valid so for in because can be a woman could be could have been incapacitated yeah uh I believe that that's those are the cases that will fall under those circumstances I also believe that probably the legislature thought to leave it a little bit wide to allow judges to decide what really is meant by such will is not valid and circumstances because circumstan some Intoxicated by a drug drug or other reasons of incapacitation or uh the fact of being you know mentally incapable of understanding uh the consequences of such a decision so for for for reasons of mental health or neurod divergency or Chromo diversity or right so we so so many things that can be covered under such a wide uh definition which again I think it's great because it consents judges to be quite flexible on to how to decide what the those circumstances uh will be the other part that of course is the other sorry it's Article 4 1B which is instead related to incest you know incest means that pregnancy is the outcome of the women being in a relationship or raped by a family member however I was curious and I wanted to ask you ahed because the law even in English uh refers to a term that I'm am not familiar with which is maram am I SP am I pronouncing that correctly the pronunciation is m m yes okay where and and the the explanation this term is whoever is not a person which is allowed to get married to so in the based on the Shar regulations there the woman can get married to any male uh person as long as they are not in the M category and the M category be like a family member like a brother or a father and it can be also extend to other family members like the son-in-law or the father-in-law from both sides and a few other categories so anybody who is not qualified to get married to the woman is a based on the it's a long list probably exensive exensive so it would be interesting uh to it's interesting to know that because of course for like Western educated it won't be possible and then there is the last option which is add the request of the spouses which again proves to be an extra case where you can submit a request based on your personal very personal circumstances to explain to the committee why you know possibly that abortion is required in the circumstances I'll talk about the decision itself of the committee because the last Point here we we talking about that there is a request that will be submitt by the spouses and what could be from your idea what could be a reason spouses like a married couple can go the committee and submit a request I don't want to get like a guaranteed reason but just out of your well I would think for instance that if you are aware that the fetus won't survive outside of the wombs of the mother right there is no reason why both these fetus and the mother would have to continue to carry a fetus or a pregnancy that everybody knows is not going to be successful it's just going to cause so much suffering to the woman and so much suffering to the fetus which will be born just to die I think it's really a matter of being when for life of also and protective protecting women that you know mentally is I think it's an immense burden I think if you're a men sometimes we say you know you've not if you've not gone through pregnancy can't really understand the hyp of psychological situation you're in you create a you know bond with the fetus immediately as long as soon as a woman knows that you know they're pregnant so making a decision like having to go through an abortion is not an easy one for sure for no one and knowing though that you might be required like for instance now in some states in the US you might be required to bring a term uh pregnancy where everybody knows that that fist is will not survive outside of the mother's womb can you imagine what it means to continue this bond for 9 months growing somebody inside of you thinking about that as a person knowing that that person is going to die and that all of your pain and effort and all your love is not going to produce anything just pain so honestly I don't I feel like that some so just to go back a little bit more to the the the topic of the topic as you know a global topic rather than just a local topic I think that those are the the cases where I feel the strongest personally to support women or the Parents Choice to terminate a pregnancy cuz I just think it's cruel the other solution I just think I don't I can't see how it can be justified honestly from from any perspective other cases could be when it is perhaps uncertain the outcome or other case it could be when the woman has a terminal illness yes that that came to my mind immediately yeah and needs treatment immediately and the treatment will definitely Pro provoke termination other cases could be mental health mhm like what if the pregnancy itself could be a cause for the mother to commit suicide or to fall into very deep depression you know hurting yourself those are all cases that I think we have to be really evaluated by the medical committee exactly and I think the committee decision and the ability for the spouses to apply to justify a case it gives a lot of room of flexibilities because there's some many occasions that we cannot think of right now exactly and and the law should be drafted in a way to accommodate the future as well so we don't know what the circumstances of the society and what could happen in the future that may need to app what medical advancement that can be that can tell us early on or earlier and earlier right so I think that's absolutely what the legislature has done here has created a situation and a system that will work to protect both women the medical profession as well as society as a whole to have a more caring and a society that is Kinder to women I honestly from uh legal P from a perspective so before coming today here I also of course checked Health Organization publish an abortion update and it contains uh it's there's an amazing uh data page that they have where you can decide which future of abortion you want to look at and which countries recognize that right or which country imposes further or additional burden on the woman that needs to practice uh you know to to go through an abortion so was really interesting to see of course the the world uh Health organization's not been updated with this new cabinet decision for the UAE so I was checking if by any chance they had made the up update but they have not made that yet it's really interesting to see how differently is regulated in different parts of the world and in some areas is absolutely you know liberal and completely a choice given completely and exclusively to to the mother and in other countries of course is extremely restricted personally I come from a country Italy where currently there has been going on there's going on a lot of issue with the new government wanting to uh amend law number 194 which is the law that allowed abortion in Italy as you know as being a country where the you know Vatican is based a very religious country uh it has always been a subject that created polarization and I do understand one of the things that they've implemented is that they've allowed non-abortion groups how can I say that I think I don't know should have saying that correctly but groups groups that are against abortion in general or pro-life organization let's called them Pro lifee organization uh to actually sit in uh Hospital in health facilities where abortion are to be are allowed to be carried out to try and convince women not to have an abortion I think that is so cruel to do because I'm sure there are exception but most women that have to make that decision they're not going to take it very lightly or very easily if they have come to that conclusion there must have been serious reason why that woman has made that decision to have somebody have to question you and then you have after you've been question and then you have to see a psychologist and then you have to wait another period of time and we have doctors in Italy that lie and because they write that the woman is more advanced in her pregnancy so that she will have less time to make the decision the old thing has become really difficult for women so I do appreciate that the legislature in the UAE has intervened with giving some guidelines to professional health professional and health facilities and regulating something that is a human right I I have a comment on that what you said that the pro-life advisers for example or or activists will be will have only one target is to stop the abortions yeah which means that they will have no time to listen to each case actually listening to the mother or or professional or medical professional which means they just put too much stress pressure extra and pressure for a woman who have already Mak much harder decision and based on their own beliefs not on medical reports not on an expert opinion not on somebody who studying law and can make you know a more Pate uh evaluation of all the facts right these are people that have a political agenda yeah right it's not has nothing to do with the women's safety or pro-life it's just a politic it's part of their political agenda and politics should not be in should have nothing nothing to do with medical decisions yeah on the other hand what I notice here based on this decision is what is very important about this uh decree as well is that at one point they are making the approval like the the the permission to do the abortions based on the consent wishes of the spouses or specific conditions and so on on the other hand they have made a limit of those who can apply app for such permit or those who can benefit from this law and get the abortion inside the UAE they must be living in the UAE really living for one year so only the people who actually live in the UAE for at least one year yeah to have this right so res so in order to of course Avail of the application of this law you need to be either a UA National or you must be a resident of the UA for at least a year so which is great again as you said so it doesn't allow for instance other tourist abortionist abortion yes that's that's also really good and also makes sense because you know if you've if you've been here for a year uh the government most probably has all your medical records and knows exactly what you're going through and so it's also easier to gather data that can be helpful although of course I wonder let's suppose somebody's pregnant and is here on vacation and still needs to seek medical care again let's suppose it is a matter of urgency I think on an em urgency basis everything care a different way in a different way or under a different under different circumstances maybe under article 16 yeah of the of law number four of 2016 the other thing sorry that I wanted to highlight is the fact that one of the conditions of course for the abortion is the fact that needs to be the written consent of the woman must be obtained before processing the procedure the law also says and here I wanted to understand a little bit what you think about this is that if it is not possible to obtain her consent the consent of her husband or Guardian shall be required in the event of the husband's AB absence and it shall not be necessary to obtain the consent of either of them in emergency cases which is great cuz that means a doctor if they need to save someone's life can make a decision during sometimes uh during a process even during voluntary abortion can happen that you know because of bleeding and so my doctors they need to make very fast decision right so we need to give them some room of some flexibility to be able to save lives I was curious about you know the possibility so one what does it mean when it says if it is not possible to obtain her consent so what do you think will be covered here well I think in in in many occasions let's put it this way the first two items in the possible scenarios scenarios where where the woman is raped by a stranger or by a family member I think on the mental capacity a lot of women will not be able to be sound or mentally able enough to give this consent they will be uh maybe not able to process or process putting legal documents in in place or even talking to a prosecutor or a committee they will not be able to do that or in in some other cases where the woman is unconscious for example or or or unfit to to talk because of other injuries circumstances could be could be the the good thing is allowing the medical facility to make a decision in case even the husband is not around it doesn't or the the guardian is not around because there might be a minor as well involved in in especially in cases probably of of ancestors which is like for me that's also really important cuz we've we know of cases unfortunately of very very young children going already through the trauma of being raped and then having to go through the trauma of having a baby age which is Unthinkable to me or 15 even even even younger sometimes there have been cases because unfortunately you know unfortunately or fortunately you know girls can be fertile even before the age of 11 so these are extreme circumstances but unfortunately they do happen and you know that's a baby that is having a baby and how fair it is to somebody that has already G through so much trauma that on top of that we have to endure this additional traumatic experience let's also think about the traumatic experience of a baby born in those circumstances of course know what kind of care would that baby have so I think really uh you know they really think thought about all possible scenarios absolutely thrilled about the the issues of this law and just to conclude I do think this country is getting better better by the day I'm so excited about what they're doing I also think from another perspective they are becoming an example of tolerance an example of finding Middle Ground to being able to at the same time protect women and ensure their rights you know understanding you know religious differences different thinking model but also glad that the legislator came to and say okay guys these are extreme cases we don't need to debate about this the legislature takes the opportunity to say this is it those cases are you know uncontestable they are dictating what's the you know moral the basic moral should be in those circumstances right I like as well that they did not just put the law and leave the practitioners to do what they like they actually have uh decided that each health authority must establish this uh procedure and they made the procedure very clear how the committee will operate how many days they have to give their opinion what the appeal can be can appeal even medical facilities not any medical facility will be allowed to do an abortion will be specific list of approved medical facilities facilities yes they went down to the niigr of how this will happen so I I think in the coming few weeks a month we will see a very much better cases handled in the right way to regulate the yes I'm Keen to see how you know medical facilities which medical facilities will you know take the opportunity to improve the services in those areas I'm curious to know as to you know what kind of practice there is because of course you know as any medical practice if you don't have cases then you need to build your practice as to abortion cuz it's different an abortion uh can provoke or can have risks Associated that are different from for instance a delivery of a baby at ter so it will be interesting to see in the medical profession as well how that is going to evolve and if their government will somehow uh you know uh ensure that at least a sufficient number of medical facilities will be open and will be registered so that the population demand in these circumstances can be met cuz for instance in Italy we have have like this massive issue that most hospital do not offer abortion services at all at all so substantially the right to abortion becomes almost impossible to exercise or just an illegal practice on because societies will find a way right but it will be legally done or will have to be like at a very at a very very high cost of having to travel somewhere else yes yes what what's your opinion because when when I read the regulation I saw that the medical facilities as well have to keep record and treat the record in a certain way what what's your opinion on how the regulation guide the medical facilities in this regard right so I think that's only fair that medical information generally are supposed to be confidential in addition to that and apart from this regulation there are gen a much more General regulation about the importance of maintaining patients confidentiality protected at the same time as we know most of the patients in the UAE medical records are also connected to their Emirates ID so there are two you know kind of point point of view on this somebody say oh but those are my personal information I don't want them to go and everybody you know being able to access them yes on the other side if you are in an emergency for the doctors to have access to all your medical record on the spot so your latest blood test it also can save your life yes right so is a little bit like I think in in these cases we kind of keep up a little bit of our uh right to secrecy to information or privacy to information because on the other hand we are earning so much more in terms of safety with regards to our health and the possibility of crosschecking those data I'm also a director right in a in a charity and uh we are now developing in a software in regards to Tele medicine and part of our job is to collect data for to understand for children with Chromo diversity we want to understand and have collect more data as possible so that we can predict doctors for instance they will need when they're Age Two what kind of blood test they will need when they're age four how can be why because if we know what Diagnostics is needed and what issues those children can have as they get older we can improve their quality of life tremendously by Simply Having a database that allows them to see to to log in and says oh my son or my daughter oh is getting to 24 months let me check online do I need to do anything at this age to ensure that she won't have any issues later on in life for instance because she might need you know a more protic diet or she might need to see an endocrinology is to check hormone levels uh to ensure that her bones are growing or his bones are growing and so forth and so on WE to do that we need to collect data and we need to collect sensitive data so we have to find mostly uh parents that want to volunteer those data so that we can create a system and that through artificial intelligence and the collection of those data and the help of specialists in those areas can allow us to collect data create predictive outcome as well as Reach Out countries where certain Specialties are not uh provided because there are so many genetic differences some are common some are a lot less common so you might have countries that will not have any specialist in those certain gentic genetic differences this connects also a lot with the right of abortion like as genetic and genetic diagnostic improves tremendously there will be a lot of parents that will think oh dear my child has a genetic defect so I want to have an abortion so we might see like a shift into the number of abortion in those countries where that is just by choice and when there there is not committee that will consider if really that child will become some somebody that you know can cannot survive or if that person could survive and then maybe have a very nice life provided that we are able to inform the parents not just of the traumatic distressful the negative you know related to that genetic difference physical also no the the positives what they can do better than other children how we can improve their Quality of Life by providing you know the Right medical care and information and so forth and so on we put a lot of efforts on this project my husband was working on this for about 3 years now but to me I of course to do this has not been engaged in any work that actually is producing income but I I'm always telling him first of all one day maybe it will and it doesn't matter because you are going to make such a huge change in so many children's and parents' life and we need to continue to invest into developing the software and to getting the data and to getting the hospitals to cooperate and again you know so I I do hope that at some point genetic Diagnostic and the right to abortion will be you know will have to be used only in very extreme circumstances and that again you know knowledge and sharing knowledge educating our children on consent educating our children on the responsibility of becoming parents I do hope uh that you know in the future the choice will be easier yes and I I I believe the medical advancement and the scientific advancement in this field is going to be very instrumental when these reports will be more trusted and more common to to be a legal document that we can submit to a committee to say based on these results based on these uh studies are 9.9% this is not a viable pregnancy so let's please avoid you know trauma to everyone and let's you know make sure cuz sometimes you know nowadays you can induce an abortion just medically with uh just taking a pill which is a lot less traumatic of course than having to go through an abortion procedure what's your short name claw or clotty clotty yes okay can I yeah yeah yeah you can you can yes perfect it's better because CL is so long and four mon so CL my my my children call me Cookie but that's a little bit too yeah that's a little bit too much CL is easy the only problem is that clot sounds like kot in in Arabic so so people don't say that don't say that so yes yes I'll do it I'll do it okay clotty at the end I thank you so much it was a very informative session and I enjoyed discussing and uh talking about the topic with you I'm sorry we came to the end of this we always seems like when we talk to each other it some seems the time go f very quickly and especially when we talk about topics that are such you know um widespread interest we hope that we provided some um you know some more information uh to to the audience but happy to answer any additional question of course we can't cover everything into a small session of 30 minutes uh thank you so much for having me ahed and I hope to see everyone in the next session thank you and thank you very much for being with us this is your do from Monday legal uh please if you have any question to uh clot or to me uh send us your questions and we will uh try to answer all of them or maybe we can be inspired for the next uh topic because we'll see CL again in four weeks and thank you very much this is your dose from Monday legal see you next week