A major public health issue worldwide, induced abortion is probably the least documented demographic and social phenomenon in Morocco. The scarcity of data, the sensitivity of the subject due to its penalization by law (with some exceptions) and the social stigma, make abortion difficult to study. This article aims to contribute to the knowledge of the scale of this phenomenon in Morocco by combining direct and indirect methods.

Based on data from the 2009-10 National Demographic Survey, the 2003-04, 2011, and 2018 National Family Planning and Health Surveys, in addition to the 2004 and 2014 General Population and Housing Censuses, the authors measured abortion rates using indirect approaches, such as the Bongaarts model (1978) and the reduced and improved Westoff method (2008), and a direct method based on women's self-reports.

The annual abortion rate reached, respectively, according to the Bongaarts and improved Westoff method, 11.6‰ versus 37.6‰ in 2004, 5.1‰ versus 38.7‰ in 2009 and 4.4‰ versus 39.9‰ in 2014. In 2009-10, this rate reached 7.21‰ among unmarried women, 8.35‰ in rural areas and 6.34‰ in urban areas, according to the direct method.

Estimates of annual abortion rates should be reproduced or completed by other approaches to better capture the reality of the level of this phenomenon in Morocco.