Morocco is reviewing its current law which restricts abortion with exceptions for threats to a woman's life or for physical or mental health. Head of state, King Mohammed VI, agreed with calls for a review of "clandestine abortion" and convened a panel of clerics, doctors and legislators to consider extending the exceptions to broaden access. The Moroccan National Human Rights Council (CNDH) announced that it will conduct a series of consultations "about the possible ways to reform the legal provisions on abortion and clandestine abortion". Proposals are expected within a month.

The road to abortion access in Morocco is paved with both distorted human rights arguments and false women's health arguments, as has been the case in countries around the world who deny children their most basic right to life in the name of "health" and "rights" and expose women to the harmful physical, psychological, and spiritual consequences of abortion.

The first meeting in the abortion review was conducted by the health ministry and included comments from Saad-Eddine El-Othmani, a former foreign minister and deputy head of the government's Islamist Justice and Development Party, who warned the panel to move slowly and not consider allowing abortions for other reasons such as economic hardship at the present time: "What's important is not to tackle all issues at once but to allow the legislation to evolve."

The push for overturning pro-life laws began in earnest with a conference in June, 2012 in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, organized by the newly formed Moroccan Association of the Fight Against Clandestine Abortion (AMLAC) and its president, Dr Chafik Chraibi who claimed the daily abortion rate is 800 abortions. However, no official data exists on abortion, even for the legal exceptions.

Access to illegal abortion in Morocco was advanced in October 2012 when the abortion-performing ship of Women on Waves attempted to sail into a Moroccan harbor. The ship was banned from the harbor but its hidden goal was achieved. Abortion Ship as Trojan Horse in Harbor Launched the Safe Abortion Hotline in Morocco explains how media reports helped to spread awareness about its abortion hotline to instruct Moroccan women how to commit illegal abortion with misoprostol: 

"So far hundreds of women have already called the hotline, on which a pre-recorded message provides all the information on how to do a safe abortion in Arabic. In this way, many more women with unwanted pregnancies are helped then by sailing into international waters. Every day 600-800 women have an illegal abortion in Morocco; every year 90 women are dying due to the lack of save abortion services. With the medicine Misoprostol, in Morocco sold as Artotec, they can have a save abortion as long as abortion is not legalized."

Women on Web claims these illegal abortions are "safe" abortions and has a website section entitled: How to do a Medical abortion in Morocco that includes the cost of a self-induced abortion: "In Morrocco, women can get 30 tablets artotec in the pharmacy for 100 dirhams [$27.23]. To do a safe abortion (till 12 weeks of pregnancy) a woman needs 12 tablets artotec."  [at a cost of $10.80 for 12 tablets!]

The road to abortion in Morocco is also being paved by distortion of human rights and human rights treaties. In October 2014, the Convention on the Rights of the Child monitoring committee issued concluding observations to Morocco which urged the government to:

"Decriminalize abortion and review its legislation with a view to guaranteeing the best interests of pregnant teenage girls, and ensure, by law and in practice, that the views of the child are always heard and respected in abortion decisions;" "Adopt a comprehensive sexual and reproductive health policy for adolescents and ensure that sexual and reproductive health education is part of the mandatory school curriculum, with special attention to preventing early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections;"

This past November, Morocco hosted the 2nd World Human Rights Forum (Marrakesh 2014). Speakers included Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Navy Pilay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who is a pro-abortion activist. Twelve thematic forums on "women's rights" were held during the conference.

The question has to be asked-- will pro-life views on abortion be sought and heard during this review? Claims that abortion is a human right are disputed by pro-life legal experts in The San Jose Articles, Article 5:

"There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law. No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion."

Article 6 includes:

"Treaty monitoring bodies have no authority, either under the treaties that created them or under general international law, to interpret these treaties in ways that create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the treaties.

Accordingly, any such body that interprets a treaty to include a right to abortion acts beyond its authority and contrary to its mandate. Such ultra vires acts do not create any legal obligations for states parties to the treaty, nor should states accept them as contributing to the formation of new customary international law."

PNCI advises Moroccan officials to read The San Jose Articles during its review of abortion laws before moving further along a road that accepts the violence of abortion in the name of "rights" and consider the findings of the Melisa Institute on the ways abortion was reduced in Chile which bans all abortion.

The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a call to countries in the Americas to "adopt urgent measures to ensure that the sexual and reproductive rights of women in the Americas are respected" on International Women's Day (IWD), March 8th. Chair of the IACHR and Rapporteur on the Rights of Women, Tracy Robinson from Jamaica, is quoted stating, "If we are to move forward in addressing women's rights, women's sexual and reproductive health must be a priority on the public agenda of the OAS Member States."

The IWD statement declares that Member States have "an obligation to conduct a detailed analysis of all laws, regulations, practices, and public policies that may have a discriminatory impact on women's access to reproductive health services, and to eliminate all factual and legal barriers that may impede women's access to the maternal health services they need. Laws restricting reproductive rights have a particular impact on adolescent women, indigenous and Afro-descendant women, lesbians, women living with disabilities, rural women, and women affected by poverty, among other risk factors."  

Chair Robinson declares, "It is imperative that all actions and measures taken by the States be geared toward facilitating access to information on sexual and reproductive health so that women can make free and independent decisions on key aspects of their health and their bodies. Moreover, women and the organizations that represent them should play an active and participatory role in designing all laws and policies related to sexual and reproductive rights."

Not only does the IACHR seek a role for pro-abortion activist groups to write laws and policies related to abortion, but it is attempting to give them special protection, "In addition, the Commission stresses the importance of those who work to defend sexual and reproductive rights, the essential role they play in building inclusive democratic societies, and the State's duty to ensure their safety so they can carry out their work without risk."

In closing, the statement urges States to "implement the recommendations of the 'Declaration on Violence Against Women, Girls and Adolescents and their Sexual and Reproductive Rights', issued in September 2014 in the 11th meeting of the Follow-Up Mechanism to the Convention of Belém do Pará (MESECVI)." The recommendations by the anti-violence treaty body include access to 'termination of pregnancy':

"Guaranteeing the sexual and reproductive health of women and their right to life, eliminating unsafe abortion and establishing laws and policies that enable the termination of pregnancy, at the very least in the following cases: i) risk to the life or health of the woman; ii) inability of the fetus to survive; and iii) sexual violence, incest and forced insemination; as well as guaranteeing that women and adolescents have immediate access to affordable contraceptives, including emergency oral  contraceptives, thereby eliminating the discriminatory effects on women of denying them services on the basis of stereotypes that reduce the primary role of women to motherhood and prevent them from making decisions about their sexuality and reproduction."

The Declaration describes laws against abortion as violating sexual and reproductive rights, as violence, and as torture:

"That there are still laws that perpetuate the exercise of violence against women, girls, and adolescents, that re-victimize them by violating their sexual and reproductive rights, and that violate the prohibition of torture and mistreatment, such as: maintaining restrictions on access to safe abortions and absolute prohibitions of abortions."

The 59th session UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) recently met to assess the status of women's issues and mark the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The outcome document, which in past session has been a source of controversy, especially over abortion, was negotiated before CSW began and made no mention of abortion or the term "sexual and reproductive health and rights". A coalition of women's groups from Latin America and the Caribbean was critical of the declaration and issued their own statement declaring, "...we consider its necessary to incorporate all needs and demands of the diversity of women and girls emphasizing sexual and reproductive rights including the right to legal and safe abortion."

PNCI Director Marie Smith, in her capacity as Priests for Life's Special Representative to the United Nations, submitted a statement from Priests for Life to CSW as an NGO with Special Consultative Status highlighting the sections of the Beijing Platform of Action that addressed sex selection abortion and the need to end the practice which results in the most extreme discrimination against infant girls--death. Statement includes:

"The girl child continues to face discrimination which is most severe in the use of sex determination techniques that identify her presence in the womb and lead to her death in sex-selective abortion. The Beijing Platform opposed the practice of prenatal sex selection in paragraph 38 stating "Discrimination against women begins at the earliest stages of life and must therefore be addressed from then onwards."           

The Platform also recognized that son preference bias not only limits the access of girls to food, education and health care but to "even life itself". While efforts to ensure girls' access to food, education and health care have benefitted by nearly universal agreement since Beijing, endeavors to ensure that girls have universal access to "life itself" have been stymied by a global failure to embrace consistent non-discriminatory protection of girls beginning "at the earliest stages of life".          

Failure to protect girls in law from prenatal sex selection as recommended to governments in paragraph 283d-- "Enact and enforce legislation protecting girls from all forms of violence, including female infanticide and prenatal sex selection"-- begins the devaluation which perpetuates throughout the life cycle and renders the worth of a girl contingent upon subjective views of wantedness and utility. The girl child becomes a commodity, devoid of innate dignity and value. Tragically, there has been little progress to stop this first act of discrimination against the girl child as the practice continues in countries and among cultures with a son preference. Anti-girl child discrimination also results in the killing of infant girls through infanticide or abandonment. The three most dangerous words in the world continue to be "It's a girl".          

We seek to ensure that respect for girls begins right from the start - while they are developing in the womb - as stated in the Platform. Our organization works to ensure that unborn baby girls are protected from abortion and guaranteed their right   to life. It is our belief that the lives of all newly created individuals, regardless of sex, deserve respect, protection and non-discrimination."

The UN's Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) continued its distortion of the anti-discrimination treaty to promote abortion during its Sixtieth Session in Geneva. While reviewing Ecuador's report, a number of experts on the treaty monitoring body questioned the official Ecuadorian delegation on the country's current abortion policy seeking expansion beyond exceptions for life or serious health threat to the mother, or when a mentally challenged woman conceives through rape.  

A news report co-authored by staff from Planned Parenthood Global and Human Rights Watch summarized the intention of pro-abortion activists that participated in the process, "The CEDAW committee should recommend that Ecuador remove restrictions and criminal sanctions for abortion, particularly for victims of sexual violence, to address the public health crisis created by unsafe abortion. It should also urge Ecuador to ensure that women have access to abortion in cases in which it is already legal."

One CEDAW committee member stated that the denial of abortion when the pregnancy resulted from rape "could amount to torture and inhuman treatment.  Such women had very limited choices."

Representatives from Ecuador told the Committee that article 45 of their constitution protects the right to life from the moment of conception but also responded that "protocols for therapeutic abortions had been greenlighted", and once in place "would eventually be applied to all health systems."

A coalition of Irish families, medical experts, and disability advocates recently launched the Geneva Declaration on Perinatal Care at the United Nations, calling for an end to the label 'incompatible with life'. The new global campaign was presented at a conference at the 28th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, entitled 'Achieving excellence in Perinatal care; Babies with a illness and disability deserve better than abortion'. The event was sponsored by the Irish-based group Every Life Counts (ELC), along with the International Trisomy Alliance, the European Centre for Law and Justice, among others, and featured families from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Spain and Switzerland. The campaign calls for ending the use of the 'incompatible with life' label, saying it causes discrimination against disabled children, born and unborn.

The declaration states that: 'As medical practitioners and researchers, we declare that the term "incompatible with life" is not a medical diagnosis and should not be used when describing unborn children who may have a life-limiting condition'. The campaign urges the UN to respect the rights of disabled children and uphold the UN Convention which states, "State Parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure the full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children".

They also urged for the inclusion of more perinatal care for families. "Yet studies show that up to 90% of children with disabilities are aborted before birth. In particular, children with life-limiting conditions are subject to discriminatory language and attitudes which deny them their humanity and their human rights. Families who are told that their baby may not live for long after birth need our full support and holistic perinatal care, but this can only be achieved if misleading and offensive language and attitudes are discontinued," explained Tracy Harkin of ELC.  

The European Parliament (EP) passed resolutions adopting two contentious reports. The first, "Tarabella Report", the annual European Parliament report on the equality between women and men in the European Union, went beyond reporting on equality in the EU and became a radical tool stating that SRHR includes access to abortion and advancing support for measures to provide "ready access" to abortion. It did, however, affirm the right of EU Member States to determine national policy on abortion related issues. Read more here.

The EP also adopted the "Panzeri Report", the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2013 and the European Union's Policy on the matter. This second report also presents abortion as an integral part of sexual and reproductive health and urges the EU to pursue a human rights based approach to development that includes abortion as a human right, during negotiations for the Post 2015 agenda at the United Nations. The report did recognize sex selection abortion as violence against women and girls in paragraph 142 of the section Rights of women and girls stating: "Calls on the Council to include the issue of 'gender-selected' abortion in the EU Guidelines concerning violence against women and girls; encourages the Commission and the Council to develop data-gathering methods and indicators on this phenomenon, and encourages the EEAS to include this issue in the development and implementation of the human rights country strategies;" Read more here.  

Thailand's interim parliament voted to ban surrogacy services in an attempt to end "rent-a-womb" tourism. Thailand has become a top destination for couples seeking surrogacy services. Recent scandals, such as the abandonment of a twin born with Down Syndrome by an Australian couple, have brought the world's attention to the practice in Thailand. "This law aims to stop Thai women's wombs from becoming the world's womb. This law bans foreign couples from coming to Thailand to seek commercial surrogacy services," said Wanlop Tankananurak, a member of Thailand's National Legislative Assembly.   

The Catholic Bishops of Nigeria have issued a statement affirming the family, particularly in the face of the "relentless attack" it faces from society. The statement entitled "Good Families Make Good Nations" decries selfishness and individualism, which negatively impacts the family stating: "The promotion of the self to the detriment of the common good is reinforced by a movie industry and social media that promotes primacy of the erotic and marital infidelity; by pressure groups funded from within and without fighting to impose a redefinition of marriage, as well as abortion and contraceptive mentality on our society; by bad examples and scandals found among persons in position of authority in homes and in offices, in politics, and even in religious communities."

The Archbishop of Paraguay demanded that the UN not push abortion, euthanasia and "gay marriage" on the country during a recent visit by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Archbishop Edmundo Valenzeula of Asuncion  issued a statement welcoming the Secretary General to Paraguay but urging the UN to respect the country's culture and values. He expressed concern for pressures by the UN that contradict Paraguay's sovereign laws protecting the sanctity of life and family:

"Unfortunately, various recommendations from the U.N. on human rights for Paraguay and other countries include supposedly new rights such as those proclaimed by radical groups that are dedicated to promoting the legalization of abortion, euthanasia, homosexual and other kinds of unions, with the possibility that these couples can adopt children."

"While we share some common good objectives proposed by the U.N., and as the Church we work in subsidiary with the Paraguayan State to achieve them, we are nonetheless vigilant in safeguarding the human and Christian values of our people, so that development focuses on and promotes a full and dignified life for all the inhabitants of our homeland."