Last March, the feminist taskforce for &ldquo;The United Law for Combating Violence Against Women&rdquo; launched a campaign highlighting its key demands. The bill comprises seven chapters with a total of 53 articles and has solicited 60 parliamentary signatures (Magdi, 2022). In 2018, the feminist taskforce was formed by six organizations: the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, the Center for Egyptian Women&rsquo;s Legal Assistance, the Egyptian Lawyers for Women&rsquo;s Rights Initiative, El Nadeem Center against Violence and Torture, the New Woman Foundation and the Tadwein Center for Gender Studies. Among the proposed articles to counter violence against women and girls, articles 31, 32, 33 and 34 are proposed to replace current articles 261, 262, 263, and 264<a href="#ref_1">[I]</a> of the Egyptian Penal Code criminalizing abortion. The proposed articles hit a couple of strategic chords. For example, article 32 adds &ldquo;immediate, extended family members, or spouse&rdquo; as potential perpetrators for forced termination of pregnancy, whereas article 263 in the Egyptian Penal Code only anticipates perpetrators to be healthcare providers (The United Law for Combating Violence Against Women, 2022). While acknowledging some of the intended strategic wins of this feminist proposal, this commentary examines one article which is arguably a regressive step.
Article 33 states that &ldquo;[a] pregnant woman shall not be punished for abortion without the partner&rsquo;s consent in the following cases: If it is for a medical reason, or if it is necessary for the pregnant woman&rsquo;s health condition, and through a doctor&rsquo;s endorsement. If the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.&rdquo; This proposed article has no parallel in current articles criminalizing abortion, nor an operationalization of the term &lsquo;partner&rsquo;. It is noteworthy that non-marital relationships are not acknowledged by Egyptian laws as partnerships. This article effectively means that only married women with consenting partners are allowed to seek abortion services. Factoring in marital status in reproductive decisions undermines the universality of sexual and reproductive health services (Abuelsoud, 2021). Furthermore, even if the mentioned &lsquo;partner&rsquo; could be taken to include non-marital relationships, conditioning women&rsquo;s consent to seek abortion will restrict access to abortion services for the people who need it.
The subtext of Article 33 lays the ground for legal abortion in cases of medical condition, rape or incest, which can be viewed as a first step in legalizing abortion without explicitly articulating it as such. However, for other circumstances, seeking third-party consent compromises women&rsquo;s reproductive autonomy, and is an unnecessary bureaucratic step, similar to an obligatory waiting period in contexts where abortion is available but not accessible. Italy&rsquo;s restricted access to abortion as a result of an obligatory seven-day waiting period forced women to seek alternative services outside the country (Minerva, 2014). In the United States, the majority of women surveyed in 1981 were unable to name any benefits of waiting periods; instead they listed all the financial and health burdens they experienced because of this restriction, such as extended breaks from work or entering the second trimester (Lupfer &amp; Silber, 1981).&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h3>The Toll of Restrictive Access to Abortion in Egypt&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>
Now let us take a look at a real-life case of unwanted pregnancy between a non-married couple, where the pregnant woman was arrested for abandoning her newborn. In 2020, a 20 year old woman was found guilty for abandoning her newborn in Helwan, after unsuccessfully trying to get her partner to marry when she found she was pregnant. She tried to have an abortion and failed. She gave birth to a twin, one died upon delivery and the other was left in a cemetery for three days before she was found dead (Seif, 2020).&nbsp;
This woman&rsquo;s experience with a pregnancy would have been different had she had the means to end it. This situation is not uncommon in a context where abortion is illegal (Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights [EIPR], 2016). If the proposed article was enshrined in law, and assuming the partner in this situation refused to approve abortion, the woman&rsquo;s circumstances exempt her from the exceptions to the criminalization of abortion, meaning she would still not be able to access a legal abortion.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Similarly, in 2019, a woman in Beni Suef had an extramarital affair that resulted in pregnancy which she tried to terminate twice but failed. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for abandoning her newborn by a drainage canal (El Sheikh, 2020). The women from these two cases didn't get the abortion they needed and ended up in jail as a result of their desperate measures, indicating the dangers posed by restrictive access to abortion.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The World Health Organization (WHO) published its set of recommendations and best practices on abortion, one of the key highlights is listing abortion in essential services (WHO, 2022). Moreover, the WHO recommends not restricting women&rsquo;s access to health services on the ground that they don&rsquo;t have the authorization of husbands, partners, parents/guardians or health authorities. These two takeaways are evidently overlooked in Article 33 proposed by the Egyptian feminist taskforce.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Making abortion accessible is one of the dreams of feminist movements across the world. Strategic litigation&ndash;through which individual lawsuits are brought with the intention of achieving broader social change&ndash;and campaigning are two key actions for feminist organizing around sexual and reproductive rights. Organizing around abortion in Egyptian feminist spaces, online and offline, has not yet gained the traction needed to substantiate a feminist position on abortion in the anticipated parliamentary debates. Sporadic organizational campaigns on abortion are insufficient to mirror collective women&rsquo;s needs and feminist demands on reproductive rights in general and the right to safe abortion in particular.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h3>Feminist organizing for abortion rights: Lessons learned from Mexico and Colombia&nbsp; &nbsp;</h3>
The &ldquo;Green Tide&rdquo; spreading across Latin American countries, including Mexico, reflects the three demands central to feminist organizing for reproductive autonomy: sexual education to explore, contraceptives to enjoy, legal abortion to decide. Between 2007 and 2019, legislative gains came in waves across many Mexican states, with a landmark Supreme Court ruling on September 7, 2021, which declared laws criminalizing abortion unconstitutional as they violate people&rsquo;s constitutional rights to autonomy and reproductive freedom (Ipas, 2021). There are more substantive ways to engage with the public on decriminalizing abortion instead of starting the debates only in the parliament, as with the Egyptian case. Campaigns around strategic litigation cases, which convey the complex and sometimes life-threatening situations women find themselves in when they can&rsquo;t access safe abortion, have influenced public reactions to abortion over the years. In Mexico, years of campaigning culminated in the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN). The SCJN ruled it unconstitutional for states such as Sinaloa &ndash; where the criminalization of abortion was justified by the concept of &ldquo;protecting the right to life from conception&rdquo; &ndash; to imprison women and birthing people for freely terminating a pregnancy. The SCJN ruling invalidated this concept based on the reality that local congresses lack the competence to state when life begins (Galv&aacute;n, 2021).&nbsp;&nbsp;
In Colombia, the intergenerational feminist movement started decades ago and until 2006 abortion was completely illegal. Their recent win was incremental, beginning with the legalization of abortion in three circumstances: if pregnancy is a result of rape, if women&rsquo;s life or health were at risk, or if fatal foetal abnormalities were detected. The number of women persecuted for having abortion peaked after 2006; because in many cases doctors refrained from providing abortion services fearing criminalization (Jaramillo Sierra et al., 2021). Feminist organizing continued through concerted effort by more than 90 organizations under the umbrella of Causa Justa, representing thousands of feminist activists. Between 2020 and 2022, Causa Justa made the case for decriminalizing abortion at the Constitutional Court. One of the arguments put forth highlighted with evidence how limited access to abortion services had a negative impact on women seeking abortion services whose circumstances met the aforementioned narrow exceptions, but came from less privileged backgrounds. Many doctors refused to provide services to poorer and immigrant women on classist and/or xenophobic grounds (Ricaurte, 2022). The disproportionate effect of restricted access to abortion on irregular migrant women meant that such restricted access violated the right to equality. Consequently, the Constitutional Court of Colombia decriminalizing abortion up to 24 weeks of gestation (Center for Reproductive Rights, 2022).&nbsp;&nbsp;
When the case for the right to safe abortion is only built on the grounds of parliamentary debates conditioned by regressive determinants such as marital status and a preceding sexual violation to access abortion services &ndash; such as the case with proposed article 33 &ndash; with no collective feminist strategy for sexual and reproductive rights, the exceptionalization of certain circumstances can knot everything up. If a partner&rsquo;s consent is not written anywhere in the law at the moment, proposing to include it with the vision of removing it later down the line does not get us where we want to, which is full, unconditional reproductive autonomy (Abuelsoud, 2021).&nbsp;&nbsp;
There are lessons to be learned from the feminist campaigns in Mexico and Colombia. For example, the Egyptian feminist taskforce should take the time to prepare and organize with feminist activists and other stakeholders such health service providers, public figures, lawyers and researchers to craft consistent evidence-based messaging that can be disseminated online and offline in a long-term campaign, while taking cases to court to raise public awareness of the complexity of situations women find themselves in, instead of exhausting resources in running just &ldquo;with or against&rdquo; parliamentarian debates (Clement, 2022). Additionally, positioning access to safe abortion as a response to sexual violence without proposing key preventive measures such as comprehensive sexuality education, as well as removing marital status as a determinant for accessing sexual and reproductive health services, takes abortion out of essential health services and make it subject to service providers&rsquo; attitudes (Bader, 2020; WHO, 2022).&nbsp;&nbsp;
The Egyptian constitution guarantees the right to health, while the WHO lists abortion in essential services. It is therefore strategic to build the fight for abortion on the premise of the right to health. The Latin American cases demonstrate that the fight can be won through decades of organized campaigning and taking cases to courts. There is a lot to learn, localize and mobilize around before drafting laws that do more harm than good.
<hr>
<a href="#1_ref">[I]</a>Article 261: Anyone who intentionally induces a miscarriage in a pregnant woman by giving her medication or by using means leading to such or by directing her to them, with or without her consent, shall be subject to imprisonment.
Article 262: A woman who willingly and knowingly takes medication or willingly uses the aforementioned means, or enables another party to use such means, thereby inducing a miscarriage shall be subject to the aforementioned penalty.
Article 263: If the person inducing the miscarriage is a doctor, surgeon, pharmacist, or midwife, he shall be subject to a defined term of hard labor.
Article 264: There shall be no penalty for attempted induced miscarriage.
<hr>
References
<ul>
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Bader, N. (2020, August 25). Why we need comprehensive sexuality education in Egypt. Alternative Policy Solutions. <a href="https://aps.aucegypt.edu/en/articles/513/why-we-need-comprehensive-sexuality-education-in-egypt">https://aps.aucegypt.edu/en/articles/513/why-we-need-comprehensive-sexuality-education-in-egypt</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Center for Reproductive Rights (2022, April 14). Colombia&rsquo;s highest court rules to decriminalize abortion. <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/colombia-court-decriminalize-abortion/">https://reproductiverights.org/colombia-court-decriminalize-abortion/</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Clement, M. (2022, March 21). Inside Colombia&rsquo;s abortion rights victory. Les Glorieuses.<a href="https://lesglorieuses.fr/mariana-ardila/">https://lesglorieuses.fr/mariana-ardila/</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. (2016, September 28). Make global day of action for access to safe abortion, September 28, an international UN day - Egyptian law must be amended to guarantee women&rsquo;s right to access safe abortion. <a href="https://eipr.org/en/press/2016/09/feminist-bodies-demand-action-make-abortion-safe-women">https://eipr.org/en/press/2016/09/feminist-bodies-demand-action-make-abortion-safe-women</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">El Sheikh, O. (2020, July 5). 10 years imprisonment for a worker who killed her newborn in Beni Suef (&lsquo;ashr sanwat le &lsquo;aamela qatlat tiflaha). Al-Masry Al-Youm. [In Arabic]. <a href="https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/1994666">https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/1994666</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">Galv&aacute;n, M. (2021, September 9). Sinaloa and Coahuila: What follows after the court's rulings on abortion? (Sinaloa y Coahuila: &iquest;Qu&eacute; sigue tras los fallos de la corte sobre el aborto?). Expansi&oacute;n Pol&iacute;tica. [In Spanish]. <a href="https://politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2021/09/09/sinaloa-y-coahuila-que-sigue-tras-los-fallos-de-la-corte-sobre-el-aborto">https://politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2021/09/09/sinaloa-y-coahuila-que-sigue-tras-los-fallos-de-la-corte-sobre-el-aborto</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Ipas. (2021, September 9). Mexico&rsquo;s supreme court declares criminalizing abortion unconstitutional. <a href="https://cutt.ly/xFR7Gcr">https://cutt.ly/xFR7Gcr</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Jaramillo Sierra, I. C., Santamar&iacute;a Uribe, N., Forero Mesa, W. (2021). The criminalization of abortion in Colombia (La Criminalizaci&oacute;n del aborto en Colombia). La Mesa por La Vida y La Salud de las Mujeres. [In Spanish]. <a href="https://cutt.ly/0FTpJva">https://cutt.ly/0FTpJva</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Lupfer, M., &amp; Silber, B. G. (1981). How patients view mandatory waiting periods for abortion. Family planning perspectives, 13(2), 75-9. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7250344/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7250344/</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Magdi, I. (2022, March 8). Feminist organizations discussing a bill to combat violence against women in Parliament (Munazamat nisawiyat yunaqishn mashru&lsquo; qanun li-munahadat al-&lsquo;unf did al-nisa' fi al-barlaman). ElGhad. [In Arabic]. <a href="https://elghad.news/61720/61720/">https://elghad.news/61720/61720/</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Minerva, F. (2014). Conscientious objection in Italy. Journal of Medical Ethics, 41(2), 170-173. <a href="https://jme.bmj.com/content/41/2/170">https://jme.bmj.com/content/41/2/170</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Seif, M. (2020, February 20). &ldquo;She buried her baby alive.&rdquo; Noha confesses: She was involved in the relationship and the scandal was bad ("Dafanat radie&lsquo;tuha hayatun".. "Noha" ta&lsquo;tarif: tawaratat fi al-&lsquo;alaqa w-al-fadiha wahshatan). AlWatan News. [In Arabic]. <a href="https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/4590275?twitter=true">https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/4590275?twitter=true</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Ricaurte, A. (2022, April 11). Intersectional feminism in courts: Colombia&rsquo;s latest abortion decision. Oxford Human Rights Hub. <a href="https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/intersectional-feminism-in-courts-colombias-latest-abortion-decision/">https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/intersectional-feminism-in-courts-colombias-latest-abortion-decision/</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">The united law for combating violence against women. (2022). Put forward by six national organizations comprising the Feminist Taskforce. Unpublished. Accessed 11 April 2022.</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">World Health Organization. (2022, March 8). Abortion care guideline. <a href="https://cutt.ly/1FTiaq4">https://cutt.ly/1FTiaq4</a></li>
</ul>

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