Abortion regulation in North Africa: The differentiated impact of … · 2013. 8. 30. · which forced rulerautocratic s from power in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. This revolutionary

Abortion regulation in North Africa: The differentiated impact of

religion

Paper to be presented at the

63rd Political Studies Association Annual International Conference The Party's Over?

25 - 27 March 2013 City Hall Cardiff

Tina Freyburg

ETH Zurich, Switzerland / University of

Warwick, UK

[email protected]

[email protected]

Jale Tosun

University of Mannheim, MZES, Germany /

University of Heidelberg

[email protected]

[email protected]

Abstract

Whereas democratization is commonly associated with improving women’s status in societal and political life, Islam is widely seen as hindering women’s rights. We present a study that empirically scrutinizes the relationship between political and civil rights, Islam and women empowerment by exploring abortion regulation in the Muslim Arab world, until recently the world’s politically least liberalized region. We show that it is neither the low degree of democracy nor Islam as dominate religion per se that explains the design of abortion regimes in the regions. Comparing abortion policies in Morocco and Tunisia, our study reveals that the degree of secularization explains the variation in abortion regimes. In so doing, we provide extend the empirical analysis of the role of religion beyond the geographic area of Western democracies.

Keywords: Abortion regimes; Arab world; Islam; Political liberalization; Pro-choice policy; pro-life policy; secularization; Women’s rights.

1

1. Introduction

In December 2010, a wave of demonstrations and protests started to occur in the Arab world,

which forced autocratic rulers from power in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. This

revolutionary wave is widely referred to as the “Arab spring” (for an overview, see e.g. Haas

and Lesch 2012). By taking a central role in the uprising that launched the Arab spring in

2011, women have intruded into the public space, which is in many Muslim Arab countries

supposed to be tabooed for them. “Arab women have the most to gain from a new century of

Arab enlightenment”1, the former president of the Tunisian Association of Democratic

Women, Khadija Cherif thus concludes. Yet, while it remains to be seen whether the recent

revolts will actually result in increased women’s rights, it is commonly assumed that the more

the political system is liberalized the more favourable the political and societal climate is for

improving women’s social status (Kandiyoti 2007; Viterna and Fallon 2008; Wing 2012). It is

also unclear what the Arab spring will bring in terms of the role of the Islam in these

countries, but it is observed that a “new political elite is emerging and Islamic parties play a

major role” (Bauer and Schiller 2012: 1). Currently, the involvement of Islamic parties in the

elections in Tunisia and Egypt suggests that they will have a major say in the shaping of the

political systems and the social status of women.

This paper analyses the role of political liberalization and secularism for the design of

abortion regimes in the Muslim Arab world. While the Arab countries still belong to the

world region with the lowest level of political liberalization on average, they are not, of

course, the only countries where the unequal status of women challenges veritable political

and societal liberalization. It is, however, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

1 New York Times (Katrin Bennhold): “Women's Rights a Strong Point in Tunisia”, 22 February 2011, available at [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/middleeast/23iht-letter23.html] (last access: 13 March 2013).

2

region where the relegation of women to the status of second-class citizens is most evident.2

There are still various obstacles that prevent women from enjoying the full range of political,

civil, economic, and legal right, and Wing (2012: 467), for instance, expresses fears that

“2012 may not represent a year of advancement for women’s rights in the region”. Albeit

it is presently not possible to directly scrutinize the effects of the recent political upheavals

due to the short time span, the study provides a general assessment of the association between

women’s political and civil rights, secularism and public policy in the MENA regions, thus

allowing drawing broader conclusions.

This paper shows that, in contrast to conventional thinking, a higher degree of political

liberalization does not necessarily determine women’s status as autonomous individual

citizens in countries where men are traditionally the dominant gender in public life. As

illustrated by intra-regional juxtaposition of women’s attainment of voting rights and the

codification of reproduction rights, many Arab countries nowadays recognize women’s

suffrage and are also supportive of the idea of women participating in political life (see Jamal

and Tessler 2008; Tessler 2010; Tessler et al. 2012). At the same time, however, these

countries display great variation with regard to the liberalization of abortion rights with some

countries being reluctant to grant the right to abort. Empirically, we here focus on abortion

regimes in Morocco and Tunisia, which are characterized by cross-country variation.

Morocco has a strict abortion regime in place, while the abortion regime in Tunisia is a very

liberal one. Note that our empirical analysis involves a historical component since the main

policy decisions concerning abortion were taken back in the 1970s and simply remained

unchallenged in the course of time. Our analysis ends in 2010 before the outbreak of the Arab

spring. For explaining the (non-)occurrence of policy change in the post-Arab spring period a

2 The MENA region comprises the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

3

different theoretical framework would clearly be needed (for an overview, see Tosun 2013:

chapter 2).

Despite firm political and scholarly interest in both processes of political transformation and

the status of women’s rights in the Arab world, and the fact that data is readily available, we

are not aware of studies that explore the relationship between political and civil rights of

women by taking the example of abortion rights specifically in the MENA region, though

there are some few global studies that include the region in their sample (Asal et al. 2008;

Pillai and Guang-Zhen 1999; Ramirez and McEneaney 1998). This is surprising since the

Arab world is a particularly interesting case to study the liberalization of abortion policies in

the context of non-democratic polities and culturally conservative societies that are affected

by different interpretations of Islam.

The presented study is qualitative since it seeks to explain “substantively important cases” by

applying a “causes-to-effects” approach” (Mahoney and Goertz 2006: 229). On the basis of

this research design, the study shows that it is predominantly the religion-state relations that

matter for the design of abortion regimes, thus providing empirical support beyond Western

democracies for the theoretical argument that a separation between religion and state matters.

Our study points to an important insight: It is not Islam per se that might hinder women’s

empowerment but the specific role it plays in politics. The more secular a political system, the

more liberal should be an abortion regime, regardless of whether we deal with Christian or

Muslim states.

Our study contributes to several literatures. First, our results have implications for the

literature that attempts to understand what drives abortion liberalization (e.g. Ramirez and

McEneaney 1998; Cook et al. 1999; Mikenberg 2002; Asal et al. 2008; Engeli 2009;

Ainsworth and Hall 2011). While most studies either use broad categories for religion as

explanatory variable or seek to keep it constant through selection of similar cases, our results

4

provide clear evidence that Muslim-majority countries do not all treat women in a similar

manner but instead grant women rights to different extent depending on the leeway the

respective interpretation of Islam guarantees. Our study departs from the instructive analysis

of Hesini (2007) and links it with more general studies of the politics of abortion regimes.

Second, our findings may contribute to the emerging comparative study of morality politics

(e.g., Minkenberg 2002; Engeli et al. 2012; Knill et al. 2013). Morality policies have

predominantly been studied in the context of the United States (e.g. Ainswoth and Hall 2011).

While the corresponding body of literature has produced numerous important insights, the

empirical limitation of the literature to the United States has prevented theory development as

well as a seminal discussion of the theoretical and empirical challenges of comparative

research in this area.

Third, our results also resonate with the literature on the role of Islam in liberalization

processes in general and the provision of women’s rights in particular (e.g. Esposito and Voll

1996; Fish 2002; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Inglehart, Norris, and Welzel 2002; Karatnycky

2002; Robinson 1997; Tessler 2002; Wing 2012). Despite the real-life significance of Islam as

the second-largest religion worldwide, our knowledge about how this religion affects politics

is severely limited.

The paper is structured as followed. First, we give an overview of the design of abortion

policies in the MENA region in general and in Morocco and Tunisia in particular. Next, we

introduce some theoretical considerations to explain the variation in abortion regimes between

the two countries under study here. Subsequently, we discuss the plausibility of these

arguments by relying on different sources of data. Finally, in the concluding section we

summarize our main findings, discuss their generalizability, and point to promising avenues

for future research.

5

2. Abortion policies in Morocco and Tunisia

In this section we describe the empirical characteristics of the dependent variable of this

study, that is, whether and on which grounds abortion is legal in the MENA countries. The

United Nations Population Division distinguishes between different grounds on which

abortion is permitted. If one does not separately categorize exceptional grounds such as rape

and incest or foetal defects, these grounds can be clustered into four levels of liberalization of

abortion rights. Abortion is available (1) only to save the life of the mother or only to those

with specific, narrow medical conditions (’life’), (2) to those with physical and mental health

problems (‘health’), (3) to those for whom the birth of a child would present some economic

or social hardship (‘economic/social’), and (4) if a woman asks for it (‘on request’).3

Throughout the MENA region abortion regimes tend to be very restrictive.

Table 1 shows in which year legislation has been adopted to permit abortions on the various

grounds. As the table shows, in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Syria, the United Arab

Emirates, and Yemen abortion is only legal if the mother’s life is at risk. Only two countries

in the entire region have introduced liberal regimes that also permit abortions on health and

economic/social grounds as well as on request: Bahrain and Tunisia. The table also provides

information about the year in which women were given suffrage to capture the most basic

dimension of political liberties for women. One of the first countries to give women suffrage

was Syria, which, however, possesses a very restrictive abortion regime.

3 Abortion access can vary greatly within each of the four categories. For some examples, see Levine and Staiger (2004: 228).

6

Table 1: Overview of abortion regimes in the MENA region

Grounds on which abortion is permitted Women’s Suffrage

Life Health Economic/Social On Request Algeria 1966 1976/85* 1962 Bahrain 1976 1976 1976 1976 2002 Egypt 1937 1956 Iraq 1969 1980 Jordan 1971 1971 1974 Lebanon 1969 1952 Libya 1973 1964 Morocco 1967 1967 1963 Oman 1974 2003 Qatar 1971 1983 1999 Saudi Arabia 1989 1989 -- Syria 1949 1949/53** Tunisia 1940 1965 1973 1973 1959 United Arab Emirates

1975 2006

Yemen 1990 1976

Notes: In some countries liberalization was a gradual process. In Algeria, abortion was first allowed only to those with physical health problems and later extended to mental health problems (*). In Syria, women’s suffrage was initially limited to the right to vote (**). The table is based on data from http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/profiles.htm and http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm.

While both Morocco and Tunisia are generally considered as more politically liberal countries

of the MENA region, they have taken different approaches to abortion regimes. Whereas in

Morocco abortion is only permitted to save the woman’s life and physical/mental health,

Tunisia has played a pioneering role in the areas of women’s rights as the first African

country to significantly liberalize its abortion law. The countries’ respective stances on

abortion also correspond to their more general stances on women’s roles in society. As

Dalmasso and Cavatorta (2010) show, the family codes in these two countries also vary

according to the logic outlined above, that is, the family code is more liberal in Tunisia and

more restrictive in Morocco.

Morocco’s abortion law was liberalized in 1967 by amending the Penal Code by Royal

Decree No. 181-66. According to this regulation, the performance of an abortion shall not be

punished when it is a necessary measure to safeguard the health of the mother and is openly

7

performed by a physician or a surgeon with the consent of the spouse. In the case that there is

no husband or the husband does not give his consent to the abortion, the physician or surgeon

may not perform the abortion without the written opinion of the chief medical officer of the

province or prefecture that needs to clearly spell out that the abortion is the only means of

safeguarding the woman’s health. In all other cases, abortion is considered to be illegal

although some evidence exists that foetal impairment may be taken into account under

medical indications. Legal abortion is in Morocco thus only available under restrictive

conditions. Any person performing an illegal abortion is subject to one to five years’

imprisonment and payment of a fine. The penalty of imprisonment is doubled in the case of

persons who regularly perform abortions. Medical and health personnel who perform an

illegal abortion are subject to the same penalties, as well as to temporary or permanent

suspension from exercising their profession. A woman who induces her own abortion or

consents to it being induced is subject to six months’ to two years’ imprisonment and payment

of a fine (UN Population Divisions 2007:146-147). In 2004, the United Nations Human

Rights Committee (UNHRC) demanded Morocco to liberalize its abortion laws in order to

comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).4 The UNHRC

report recommends Morocco ‘should ensure that women are not obliged to carry their

pregnancies to term when that is incompatible with the obligations rising from the Covenant

(articles 6 and 7) and to liberalize the provisions relative to the interruption of pregnancy’5.

Due to these restrictive laws and the country’s high maternal mortality rate, Moroccan women

held the Abortion Conference in May 2010 with the goal to come to an agreement on illegal

4 The 1994 ICPD, held in Cairo, was the first UN meeting to forge a global consensus on abortion. The UN General Assembly in New York reiterated this commitment in 1999 at the five-year review of the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action. The main goal is to reduce the need for abortion and protect women’s health in the event abortions do occur (Dabash and Roudi-Fahimi 2008: 3). 5 http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2004/nov/04111002 (last access: 13 March 2013).

8

abortions. However, there has no progress in abortion matters.6 In a similar vein, lobbying by

Moroccan women's rights groups and political parties has been unsuccessful in bringing

policy change with regard to the issue of abortion.7 Despite these efforts, by the end of 2010 –

i.e. the ending of our observation period – no reform of the abortion regime occurred.

Compared with most Arab countries, Tunisia has very liberal abortion policies. In 1965, it

was the first Arab country to liberalize its abortion law. Law No. 65-24 of 1965 amended the

Tunisian Penal Code to allow abortions to be performed during the first three months of

pregnancy. The social condition for abortion defined in this law was that a couple had at least

five living children. The health related condition was that the continuance of pregnancy posed

a danger to the health of the pregnant woman. In 1973, the law was further modified to allow

abortion for all women, regardless of their marital status or number of children. The abortion

law is unique in the region in that spousal consent is not required, and women do not have to

be married to obtain an abortion (Hesini 2007: 79). Remarkably, the government subsidizes

the performance of abortions in the same way as all other medical services, and those entitled

to receive free health care can obtain an abortion free of charge in public hospitals (UN

Population Divisions 2007: 138-139). In Tunisia, abortion law reform was part of a larger

post-colonial effort to increase women’s status and rights, to limit population growth and to

promote socio-economic development. Tunisia was the first MENA country to liberalize its

abortion law, abolish polygamy and give men and women the same rights to divorce, among

other things, in its personal status code (Dabash and Roudi-Fahimi 2008: 5). There is no

evidence available suggesting that societal groups or political forces in Tunisia will challenge

the currently valid abortion regime, which makes shifting to a less liberal policy unlikely.

6 http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=543:moroccan-women-lobby-for-legal-abortion-religion-gendered-power-and-womens-health-rights&catid=59:gender-issues-discussion-papers&Itemid=267 (last access: 13 March 2013). 7 http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2009/12/04/feature-01 (last access: 13 March 2013).

9

3. Theoretical considerations: pro-choice or pro-life

When debating democratization in the Arab world, the question of women and their political

and civil rights is habitually raised (e.g. Fish 2002: 24; Ottoway and Carothers 2004: 22). The

elevation of the status of women and the recognition and enforcement of their rights are often

considered to be integral part of the struggle for democracy. This idea is reflected in

democracy promotion policies of international actors such as the United States, who support

the empowerment of women and more egalitarian gender relations under the 2002 Middle

East Partnership Initiative and the 2004 Broader Middle East and North Africa partnership

initiative (see, e.g., Carapico 2002; Dalacoura 2005: 964; Freyburg 2011; Ottoway 2004).

Many different rights determine the status of women. The 2010 edition of the Freedom House

survey on women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa, for instance, centres on five

indicators, namely non-discrimination and access to justice; autonomy, security, and freedom

of the person; economic rights and equal opportunity; political rights and civic voice; and

social and cultural rights.

From this perspective, the legal possibilities for having an abortion can also be perceived as

women’s rights. Put differently, liberalized abortion regulations codify the right to control

over one owns body, which is inherent in the recognition of a person – “regardless of gender

and application” (Asal 2008: 266) – as autonomous individuals and as such a precondition of

full political citizenship. In this regard, Prata (2010), for instance, illustrates how important

democratization was for legalizing abortion in Poland. Similarly, Reuterswärd et al. (2011)

argue that in Latin America the democratization process provided a new opportunity for

women’s rights movements to push for reforms on issues previously regarded as too sensitive.

The transition to democracy politicized the issue of gender and enabled gender-specific

agendas, including abortion, to be drawn into the public debate and to receive support from

international organizations.

10

Thus, the advocates of liberal abortion regimes argue that abortion constitutes an additional

dimension of women’s rights, involving individual liberty, reproductive freedom, and

reproductive rights. They contend that whether or not a pregnant woman continues with a

pregnancy is her personal choice. This perspective is commonly referred to as the “pro-

choice” stance on abortion (see Ainsworth and Hall 2011). Given that abortion is perceived as

dimension of women’s rights, we expect that countries with more politically liberal regimes to

support liberal abortion regimes.

There is, however, a second perspective on the issue of abortion. As Ainsworth and Hall

(2011) note, there is the rival “pro-life” stance, which essentially argues that the government

is obliged to preserve all human life, regardless of intent, viability, or quality-of-life

concerns.8 The pro-life ethic is proposed by Roman Catholic Church and similar religious

organizations. Minkenberg (2002) refers to this perspective on abortion policies and provides

a comprehensive examination of the relationship between religion and policy making. The

author derives numerous theoretical expectations, which he tests on the basis of data for 19

Western democracies. First, he expects that abortion policies should be more liberal in

political systems that are characterized by a separation of church and state. Second, he

emphasizes the role of confessions (Roman Catholic, Protestant, or confessionally mixed).

Countries that are predominantly Roman Catholic are expected to have stricter abortion

regimes, while Protest countries are anticipated to be inclined to adopt more liberal ones.

Third, Minkenberg concentrates on the levels of religiosity, expecting that higher levels of

religiosity entail stricter abortion regimes. Finally, the existence of religious parties is

expected to lead to more restrictive abortion regimes.9 Based on his empirical analysis,

Minkenberg finds evidence supporting the role of confessional values and levels of individual

8 This terminology is also contested, but in its use the follow Ainsworth and Hall (2011). 9 Note that in the volume edited by Engeli et al. (2012) political parties and cleavages play a central role, which reflects the logic of the argument put forward by Minkenberg (2002).

11

religiosity. Most importantly, Minkenberg finds not evidence for the relevance of the church-

state relations for the design of abortion regimes.

Based on these considerations, there are two fundamental expectations we seek to empirically

assess in this study. First, we want to explore whether political and civil rights granted to

women explain the liberal regime in Tunisia and restrictive regime in Morocco as the pro-

choice perspective on abortion policies suggests. Second, and in line with the pro-life

perspective, we seek to test whether and how religion shapes abortion policies in Morocco

and Tunisia.

4. Explaining the variation: the empirical analysis

In this section we evaluate the respective roles of political liberalization and religion for

explaining the differences in the abortion regimes of Morocco and Tunisia. Our analysis

covers five dimensions. First, we shed light on the political rights and civil liberties in these

countries. Then, we turn to the assessment of the role of religion by following the analytical

dimensions pointed out by Minkenberg (2002). This means that the second dimension is the

degree to which the two states are secular, while the third dimension refers to role of

confessions. The fourth dimension is about the levels of religiosity and the fifth dimension

concerns the existence and roles of Islamic political parties.

We begin with the analysis of the role of political and civil rights. Figure 1 illustrates the

degree of freedom based on the Freedom House (FH) values for political rights and civil

liberties. The Freedom House data are based on expert assessments of the extent to which a

country provides for political rights and civil liberties. Both dimensions are measured on a 1

to 7 scale. Political rights refer, among other dimensions, “to the existence and fairness of

elections, existence of opposition and the possibility to take over power via elections. Civil

liberties refer to, for example, the freedom of assembly, the right to open and free discussion,

12

the independence of media, protection from political terror and the prevalence of the rule of

law” (Neumayer 2002: 145-146). It generally holds that lower FH scores represent more

liberal regime. Of these two countries, Morocco has been politically more liberal during the

entirety of our observation period, which would lead us to think that it is also the country with

a more liberal abortion policy. On the contrary, Moroccan abortion policies are more

restrictive than Tunisian legal provisions. The autocratic regime of Tunisia, now overthrown

by revolutions, had carried forward what are among the most liberal reproductive rights

policies in the region.

Figure 1: Freedom House Scores for Morocco and Tunisia (1973-2010)

Notes: Data taken from www.freedomhouse.org.

For a more rigorous analysis, we use an additional indicator. The Polity2 variable – which is

also based on expert assessments - indicates the degree to which polities have democratic and

autocratic features. A polity is highly autocratic if it has a value of -10 and it is very

democratic if it has a value of 10 (Marshall et al. 2011). As figure 2 shows, until the mid-

1980s both countries had very high negative scores indicating the existence of an autocratic

regime. When the very liberal abortion regime was adopted in Tunisia in 1973, the country

was considered as autocratic as Morocco. Only from the mid-1980s onwards, Tunisia –

34

56

1970 1980 1990 2000 20101970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Morocco Tunisia

Free

dom

Hou

se 7

-pt D

emoc

racy

Rat

ing

Year

13

according to the measurement concept of the Polity2 indicator – became less autocratic

compared to Morocco. The use of this additional indicators signals that the differences in the

levels of political and civil rights are not as clear as initially thought. Most importantly,

however, we must state that when the liberal abortion regime was adopted in 1973 by the

Tunisian government the country mostly corresponded to an autocracy. As a result, we

conclude that the adoption of a liberal abortion policy in Tunisia cannot be explained by the

existence of a more liberal political regime.

Figure 2: Polity2 Scores for Morocco and Tunisia (1970-2010)

Notes: Data taken from www.systemicpeace.org.

After independence from France in 1956, Tunisian President Bourguiba, who was in power

until 1987, established secularism in the country and restricted the influence of religion. The

president’s embracement of secularism is best shown by his launch of a ban on polygamy in

1956. In most MENA countries, marriage laws follow Islamic shari’a and allow men to have

four wives. “To avoid clashing with religion, Tunisia based its ban on polygamy on the aspect

of Islamic law that requires wives be treated equally, which is extraordinarily difficult” (Wing

2009: 423). To pursue his secularist programme Bourguiba repressed Islamist politicians.

Bourguiba’s successor, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was pushed out of office during the

-10

-9

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

Polit

y2 s

core

s

Morocco

Tunisia

14

Arab spring, was also known to be a secularist. Altogether we can conclude that among the

MENA countries Tunisia represents a very secular political regime (see also Wing 2009). The

role of religion has been much more prominent in Morocco. Islam is omnipresent in

Moroccan politics and the constitution stipulates that Islam is the official state religion. The

Moroccan monarch is “commander of the (Muslim) believers” and “defender of the faith” in

the country (see Zenghal 2008). Thus, compared to Tunisia, the degree of secularism is

clearly lower in Morocco.

The analysis of confessions is complicated in the case at hand for both countries belong to the

same Islamic confession. More precisely, Morocco and Tunisia share a common legacy of

Islamic jurisprudence of the Maliki School of religious law within Sunni Islam10. Qur’an does

not explicitly refer to abortion, but offers guidance on related matters. Scholars and others

therefore use their own discretion to apply the Qur’an’s guidance to the matter of abortion.

Chakrullah commented that it is ‘ironic that the Islamists seem to pick and choose what is

“Islamic” and what is not if it suits their conservative agenda.’ The interpretations of those in

powerful positions are therefore at the heart of discrimination against female citizens.11

While Tunisia opted for a model of personal status code marked by progressive innovations

and interpretations of Islamic rules, Morocco chose to adhere to and reinstate the classical

position prescribed by the Maliki jurists (Buskens 2003: 73). Although the Tunisian code does

not contain explicit references to Islam, Islamic values and principles have clearly influenced

its content. The reforms do not completely reject Islamic values and principles but seek to

modernize them. The distinct interpretative approach to Islam “exemplifies the application of

10 Muslims are broadly divided into two main sects, Sunni and Shia, resulting from a political dispute over succession following the Prophet’s death. The four main schools of the Sunni sect are the Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafii schools. While the schools agree on certain fundamental legal issues, their various interpretations of the sources of Shari’a have given rise to different rules on some points of law. 11 http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=543:moroccan-women-lobby-for-legal-abortion-religion-gendered-power-and-womens-health-rights&catid=59:gender-issues-discussion-papers&Itemid=267

15

principles of religious interpretation to allow Islam to best serve the needs of a modern

society” (Sayeh and Morse 1995: 330). The gender roles envisaged in the Moroccan Code

were opposite to those of the Tunisian Code, reaffirming many of the rules propagated by the

classical Maliki jurists and reinforcing patriarchal traditions. Correspondingly, the reforms of

Tunisian abortion policy were based on a progressive interpretation of Islamic principles and

beliefs (Hessini 2007: 79). Therefore, there is evidence that interpretation of Islam is

important for the degree to which abortion policies are liberal. While this finding does not

directly correspond to the argument advanced by Minkenberg (2002), it still reflects the idea

that different confessions rely on different interpretations of how religion perceived of moral

issues (see Ainsworth and Hall 2011: 134-138). Consequently, we regard the finding that the

interpretation of Islam matters to be in line with Minkenberg’s reasoning about confessions.

We now turn to the role of religiosity, which entails some serious measurement issues. The

best data source for receiving information about levels of religiosity or attitudes towards

religion is the Arab Barometer (see Jamal and Tessler 2008; Tessler 2010; Tessler et al.

2012). The problem we encounter that it is impossible to obtain longitudinal data on

religiosity or attitudes towards religion. This means that we cannot make any statement with

regard to the period dating back to the 1970s. What we still can state, however, is that

Tunisians, on average, have been less supportive of a political Islam as Moroccans (see Jamal

and Tessler 2008; Tessler 2010; Tessler et al. 2012). This finding again supports the argument

advanced by Minkenberg about the importance of religiosity at the individual level.

With regard to Islamic parties, Tunisia used to practice a very repressive policy towards them.

In fact, during the 1980s many activists and officials from the Tunisian Islamic Tendency

Movement left them country because of these repressive politics. It was only with Arab spring

that the moderate Islamist Ennahda Movement could develop into a political party, which

since then has become the most-well organized political party in Tunisia.

16

Compared to Tunisia, Islamist parties have had more liberties in Morocco. The Party of

Justice and Development – which has done well since the parliamentary elections of 2002 –

can be traced back to the Islamic Youth Association, which was already founded around 1970

(see Wegner and Miquel Pellicer 2009). Thus, there is evidence supporting Minkenberg’s

reasoning about the role of parties.

Altogether, however, we argue that it is the degree of secularism that makes a main difference

with regard to the design of the abortion regimes. To be sure, the existence of secular

elements clearly has implications for the status of religious parties, thus suggesting that these

two dimensions cannot be considered to be separable. As concerns the role of confessions – or

our adjusted understanding of them as interpretations of religions – again it is not clear how

separable this dimension is from secularism. Then, it must be noted that higher levels of

religiosity might also depend on the more fundamental institutional relation between religion

and state. It is entirely plausible that people in more secular states also pay less attention to

religion and vice versa. Therefore, it is not very straightforward to clarify whether it is the

variation in the levels of religiosity per se that matters or again the degree of secularism. In

any case, we can confidently rule out that abortion is mostly or exclusively a matter of

political and civil rights. Instead, we clearly see evidence that abortion regimes are closely

related to religious norms and values as it is the case with other morality policies (see Engeli

et al. 2012).

5. Conclusions

In this paper we have shown that religion does have an impact on the design of abortion

regimes. In empirical terms, we concentrated on the religion-state relations, the role of Islamic

parties, individual-level religiosity, and the different interpretations of Islam. We found that

the liberal abortion regime in Tunisia can be explained by a limited role of Islam in politics,

the weakness of Islamist parties, and a liberal interpretation of Islam. Conversely, Islam is the

17

official state religion in Morocco and the royal family claims its legitimacy on descent from

the Prophet Muhammad, indicating that Morocco is not a secular state. In addition, the

Islamic Justice and Development Party (and its predecessor, the Popular Movement Party) has

been around since the 1960s. Furthermore, Morocco chose to adhere to and reinstate the

classic position on Islam as prescribed by the Maliki jurists. While adequately data are absent,

there are still hints that Tunisians are less religious than Moroccans. These differences in the

degree to which religion plays a role in politics are found to matter for the design of abortion

policies, rather than the existence of a liberal polity. This finding is partly in line with the

findings of Minkenberg (2002). The main difference of our findings vis-à-vis the findings of

Minkenberg is that we claim that the institutional relationship between state and religion

matters. Indeed, we find additional anecdotal support for this finding.

Since the ascending into power of the Islamic Justice and Development Party in Turkey, the

separation of state and religion has become diluted in Turkey (see e.g. Somer 2011) and there

is evidence that policy change entails more restrictive standards in many policy areas. This is,

among other things, visible in the increase of taxes imposed on alcoholic beverages. In this

context, in June 2012 the Turkish government announced plans to restrict the currently liberal

Turkish abortion regime. Due to intense public protests the government withdraw the draft

legislation.12 Nonetheless, this example shows that a growing influence of religion in politics

by means of reducing the degree of secularism can have an important impact on the design of

abortion policies.

To recall, our analysis ends in 2010 since the Arab spring represents a complex phenomenon

for which we cannot adequately control. In December 2012, however, the prime minister of

Morocco announced that he plans relaxing the country’s strict abortion regime. The New

York Times contends that this change is brought about by a steep rise both in illegal abortions

12 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18297760 (last access: 13 March 2013).

18

and in the number of unmarried mothers caught in the poverty trap as well as the public onion

on these social problems, which has become more favourable towards allowing abortion on

additional grounds.13 From this it follows that fundamental policy change can become

possible despite a dominant role of the religion in politics. What it needs for policy change to

happen is that a given social problem passes a threshold such that the public recognizes it as a

social problem and demands policy responses mitigating it. This finding has important real-

life implications. It means that providing the public information about the negative effects of

restrictive abortion regimes might influence the citizens’ opinions and therefore lead to

enhanced pressure put on policy makers to address the problem. Thus, while here we found

that institutions matter for policy making, we can also state that the public recognition of

social problems can help to bring about policy change. Therefore, we encourage future

research to systematically address the event of abortion policy change that is about to occur in

Morocco to produce even more illuminating insights into (morality) policy making in Islamic

countries.

13 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/africa/new-prime-minister-surprises-moroccans-with-support-for-abortion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

19

Acknowledgements

We presented a first version of this paper at the conference “3. Offenen IP-Sektionstagung” of

the German Political Science Association (DVPW), which took place in Munich, Germany,

from 6 to 7 October 2011. We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments received from

the participants of the conference.

.

20

References

Ainsworth, Scott H. and Thad E. Hall (2011). Abortion Politics in Congress: Strategic Incrementalism and Policy Change New York: Cambridge University Press.

Asal, Victor Mitchell Brown and Renee Gibson Figueroa (2008). Structure, Empowerment and the Liberalization of Cross-National Abortion Rights. Politics & Gender, 4, pp 265-284.

Bauer, Michael and Thomas Schiller (2012). The Arab Spring in 2012. CA Perspectives 1 (1): 1-3, http://www.cap.lmu.de/download/2012/CAPerspectives-2012-01.pdf.

Boyle, M. and McEvoy, J. (1998) Putting abortion in its social context: Northern Irish women's experiences of abortion in England. Health, 2, 283-304.

Buskens, Léon (2003) recent Debates on Familiy Law Reform in Morocco: Islamic Law as Politics in an Emerging Public Sphere, in: Islamic Law and Society 10(1): 70-131.

Carapico, Sheila (2002) Foreign Aid for Promoting Democracy in the Arab World, in: Middle East Journal 56 (3): 379-395.

Cook, Rebecca J., Bernard M. Dickens, Laura E. Bliss (1999) International Developments in Abortion Law from 1988 to 1998, in: American Journal of Public Health 89(4): 579-586.

Considine, Mark and Iva Ellen Deutchman, "Instituting Gender: State Legislators in Australia and the United States," Women & Politics 4 (1996), 1-4.

Dabash , R. and F. Roudi-Fahimi (2008). Abortion in the Middle East and North Africa: https://www.prb.org/pdf08/MENAabortion.pdf.

Dalacoura, Katerina (2005) US Democracy Promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: A critique, in: International Affairs 81(5): 963-979.

Dalmasso, Emanuela and Cavatorta, Francesco (2010) Reforming the family code in Tunisia and Morocco - the struggle between religion, globalisation and democracy. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 11 (2): 213-228.

Engeli, Isabelle (2009). The Challenges of Abortion and Assisted Reproductive Technologies Policies in Europe", Comparative European Politics, 7(1), 56-74.

Engeli, Isabelle, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Lars Thorup Larsen (2012). Morality Politics in Western Europe. Parties, Agenda and Policy Choices. Palgrave MacMillan

Esposito, John L. and John O. Voll (1996) Islam and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fish, M. Steven (2002) Islam and Authoritarianism, in: World Politics 55(1): 4-37. Freedom House (2005) Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, Edition 2005,

available at [http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=444] (last access: 3 September 2011).

Freedom House (2009) Freedom in the World, Edition 2009, available at [http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2009] (last access: 17 September 2011).

Freedom House (2010) Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, Edition 2010, available at [http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=383&report=86] (last access: 3 September 2011).

21

Freyburg, Tina (2011) ‘Transgovernmental Networks as Catalysts for Democratic Change? EU Functional Cooperation with Arab Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization of Involved State Officials into Democratic Governance’, Democratization 18(4): 1001-1025.

Gastil, Raymond Duncan. 1991. “The Comparative Survey of Freedom: experiences and suggestions”. In On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants, ed. Alex Inkles. New Brunswick and London: Transaction.

Goodwin, Jeff and James M. Jasper (1999) Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory, in: Sociological Forum 14 (1): 27-54.

Haas, Mark and David Lesch (eds) (2012). The Arab Spring: Change and Resistance in the Middle East. Boulder: Westview Press.

Hedayat KM, Shooshtarizadeh P, Raza M. Therapeutic abortion in Islam: contemporary views of Muslim Shiite scholars and effect of recent Iranian legislation. J Med Ethics. 2006;32(11):652–7.

Hesini L. (2007) Abortion and Islam: policies and practice in the Middle East and North Africa. Reproductive Health Matters 2007; 15 (29):75-84.

Inglehart, Ronald and Christian Welzel (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: the human development sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Inglehart, Ronald and Baker, Wayne (2000). Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological Review, 65(1), February: 19-21.

Inglehart, Ronald, Pippa Norris and Christian Welzel (2002) Gender Equality and Democracy, in: Comparative Sociology 1(3-4): 321-345.

Jamal, Amaney and Mark Tessler (2008). “The Democracy Barometers: Attitudes in the Arab World,” Journal of Democracy 19 (1): 97–110.

Kandiyoti, D. (2007). Between the Hammer and the Anvil: Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Islam and Women's Rights Third World Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007), pp. 503-517

Karatnycky, Adrian (2002) Muslim Countries and the Democracy Gap, in: Journal of Democracy 13.

Knill, Christoph, Stephan Heichel and Sophie Schmitt (2013). Public Policy Meets Morality: Conceptual and Theoretical Challenges in the Analysis of Morality Policy Change, in Journal of European Public Policy 20 (3), forthcoming.

Levine, Philip B. and Douglas Staiger (2004) Abortion Policy and Fertility Outcomes: The Eastern European Experience, in: Journal of Law and Economics 47(1): 223-243.

Lipset, Seymour Martin (1971) Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy, in: The American Political Science Review 53(1): 69-105.

Mahoney, James and Goertz, Gary (2006) A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research, in: Political Analysis 14: 227-249.

Marshall, Monty J., Keith Jaggers, and Ted Robert Gurr. 2011. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2010.

McDonagh, Eileen (2002) Political Citizenship and Democratization: The Gender Paradox, in: American Political Science Review 96: 535-552.

22

Neumayer, Eric (2002) Do democracies exhibit stronger international environmental commitment? A cross-country analysis. Journal of peace research, 39 (2). pp. 139-164.

Norris, Pippa and Joni Lovenduski (1989) Women Candidates for Parliament: Transforming the Agenda? In: British Journal of Political Science 19(1): 106-115.

Ottoway, Marina (2004) Don’t confuse women’s rights and democracy’, International Herald Tribune, 30 March 2004.

Ottoway, Marina and Thomas Carothers (2004) Middle East Democracy, in: Foreign Policy 145: 22-24 + 26-28.

Pillai, Vijayan K. and Guang-zhen Wang (1999) Social Structural Model of Women’s Reproductive Rights: A Cross-National Study of Developing Countries, in: The Canadian Journal of Sociology 24(2): 255-281.

Prata, Ana (2010). Finding a voice: Abortion claim-making during Portuguese democratization, in: Women's Studies International Forum 33(6): 579-588.

Ramirez, Francisco O. and Elizabeth H. McEneaney (1998) From Women’s Suffrage to Reproduction Rights? Cross-national Considerations, in: International Journal of Comparative Sociology 39(1): 6-24.

Reuterswärd, C., Zetterberg, P., Thapar-Björkert, S. and Molyneux, M. (2011), Abortion Law Reforms in Colombia and Nicaragua: Issue Networks and Opportunity Contexts. Development and Change, 42: 805–831.

Robinson, Glenn E. (1997) Can Islamists be Democrats?, in Middle East Journal 51. Sayeh, Leila P. and Adriaen M. Morse (1995) Islam and the Treatment of Women: An

Incomplete Understanding of Gradualism, in: Texas International Law Journal 30: 311-334.

Senti Martin (1994) Geschlecht als politischer Konflikt – Erfolgsbedingungen einer gleichstellungspolitischen Interessensdurchsetzung. Eine empirische Untersuchung am Beispiel der Schweiz. Paul Haupt: Bern.

Somer M. Does it take democrats to democratize? Lessons from Islamic and secular elite values in Turkey (2011) Comparative Political Studies, 44 (5) , pp. 511-545.

Stokke, Olav (1995) Aid and Political Conditionality: Core Issues and State of the Art, in: Olav Stokke (ed.) Aid and Political Conditionality. London: Frank Cass.: 42-5.

Tessler, Mark (2002) Islam and Democracy in the Middle East: The Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes toward Democracy in Four Arab Countries, in: Comparative Politics 34.

Tessler, Mark, Amaney Jamal and Michael Robbins (2012). New Findings on Arabs and Democracy. Journal of Democracy 23(4): 89-103.

Tosun, Jale (2013) Environmental Policy Change in Emerging Market Democracies: Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America Compared. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

United Nations (2011) United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Abortion Policies. A global review. Country profiles, available at [http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/profiles.htm] (last access; 17 September 2011).

Viterna, J. and Fallon, K.M. (2008) ‘Democratization, Women’s Movements, and Gender- Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison’, American Sociological Review 73(4): 668–89.

Walsh, D.M. (2011).Women's Rights in Democratizing States: Just Debate and Gender Justice in the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

23

Wejnert, Barbara, Andrea Parrott and Almagul Djumabaeva (2008) Maternal Health Policies in Transition: Poland and Kyrgyzstan, 1990-2006, in: Marriage and Family Review 3: 180-209.

Welch, Susan (1985) Are Women more liberal than men in the U.S. Congress? in: Legislative Studies Quarterly 10(1): 125-134.

Wegner, Eva and Miquel Pellicer (2009). Islamist moderation without democratization: the coming of age of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development? Democratization 16(1): 157-175.

Wing, Adrian K. (2009). International Law, Secularism, and the Islamic World. American University International Law Review 24, no. 3: 407-428.

Wing, Adrian K. (2012). The ‘Arab Fall’: The Future of Women’s Rights,” U.C. Davis Journal of International Law & Policy 18(2): 445-468.

Zeghal, Malika (2008). Islamism in Morocco: Religion, Authoritarianism, and Electoral Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers.