CAIRO, 16 March 2005 — Egypt’s Shoura Council, the upper house of Parliament, recently rejected a draft law to legalize abortion and give women the freedom to end unwanted pregnancies.
Abdel Azim Ramadan, a council member, said Egypt has to modernize its social laws by accepting the idea of abortion. “Societies keep on changing, and in the Western world, for instance, abortion is an accepted practice,” Ramadan told Arab News.
Ramadan’s proposal ended up sparking debate both in religious and secular circles in Egypt. Should the life of a fetus be sacrificed for the sake of the mother’s life or her status in the society?
A few years ago, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, declared that abortion is allowed in Islam if the mother’s life is in imminent danger. Last year, he approved a draft law allowing women to abort a pregnancy that is the result of rape, but the bill has not been discussed yet in Parliament.
“Islam’s basic rule is to make life easier for people,” Tantawi said, adding that on those grounds, a rape victim should be allowed to terminate a pregnancy. “She won’t have any feeling for the child, which will always remind her of the incident she has gone through and perhaps hinder her getting married.”
The draft law, which stipulates that it’s legal for raped women to undergo an abortion more than four months after conception, has already prompted an angry response from members of the Dar Al-Iftaa — the body responsible for overseeing interpretations and fatwas at Al-Azhar.
According to current Egyptian law and religious doctrine, abortion is only allowed within four months of conception if the mother’s life is in danger. The mother, however, is not permitted to induce abortion if it is diagnosed that the fetus is deformed, suffers from mental retardation or is a result of rape. Physicians found guilty of breaking the law face three years in prison and are not allowed to practice medicine again. But the financial gains of performing abortions outweigh the legal risks in Egypt. Although a professional, safe medical abortion costs about 3,000 Egyptian pounds to 20,000 Egyptian pounds in private clinics, abortions done at home without medical supervision could cost only a few hundred Egyptian pounds.
Surprisingly, a recent study by the National Council for Population and the Cairo Demographic Center reveals that more than one-third of the Egyptian women have tried to terminate a pregnancy. The 2004 study found that 34 percent of women who have had an abortion had to do it for financial reasons and that about 150 women die each year as a result of unsafe abortions.
Members of the Dar Al-Iftaa said they were against legalizing abortion even if it is a product of rape or non-marital relationship.
The mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, said Tantawi’s decision was wrong and violated the Qur’an’s injunction that “forbids killing innocent souls.”
“It is haram (forbidden) to abort the fetus after life is breathed into it, in other words after 120 days,” Gomaa said.
However, he added that a woman could terminate a pregnancy if she was in immediate danger. “Both the raped woman and the child are guiltless,” Gomaa said. “If it is sacrilegious for a woman to get rid of a child who is the result of incest, then an innocent raped woman also may not abort a fetus.”
Scholars at Al-Azhar have asserted that the current law must not be modified under any circumstances. “Muslim scholars have always debated whether a fetus can be aborted before it reaches 120 days, so how can Tantawi decide to allow raped women to abort a baby even in the final months of pregnancy?” asked Nasr Farid Wasel, former mufti of Egypt. “All scholars and sheikhs have agreed that abortion is sacrilegious except to save a woman’s life,” he said.
Malakah Youssef, professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al Azhar University, said abortion was a crime from the moment of conception — even in the case of rape.
“We cannot stop a crime, that is, rape, by committing a more cruel and barbarous crime of killing a human being,” he said.
Referring to Tantawi’s assertion that women were unlikely to feel a close attachment to a child that was the result of rape, Ahmed Taha Rayan, a professor of jurisprudence, disagreed.
“It is nonsense that a woman wouldn’t have feelings for the baby. Even animals have feelings for their offspring,” Rayan said. “Our sheikhs should not open the door to strange Western ideas that do not conform with Islam,” Rayan warned.
Others suggested that the victims of rape should give birth to a child conceived in a rape and then give it to an orphanage or a woman unable to have children.
“This is better than killing an innocent soul who has not committed any sin,” said Ibrahim Farag, religious adviser to Al-Azhar.
However, there are others who accept that there is no easy solution for women in such situations, and that both Tantawi and Gomaa offer possible options. “Such a pregnancy is a disaster for both the woman and society,” suggested Abdel Sabour Shahine, a professor at Al-Azhar. “The child will be mistreated and looked down on during his life, so it is up to the mother to decide,” he said.
Several studies stress that the illegality of abortion is a relatively new concept in the Egyptian history. Abortion, in fact, was widely accepted in society until it was outlawed by Muhammad Ali in the 1830s, reportedly to increase the male population available for his armies.
Some women interviewed by Arab News that sometimes an abortion is the only way out to end the sufferings of an entire family. “You do not know how it feels to have an unwanted child who is a result of rape or a child who has some severe physical problems,” said Amina Khaled, a 23-year-old teacher.
However, other women say they are opposed to abortion as it is against the teachings of Islam. “We should not play God here and decide when to end and when not to end a life of someone even if it is a fetus,” said Salwa Baraka, a 27-year-old housewife. “If a pregnancy happens then the whole family has to accept it no matter what. We should not commit a terrible crime.”