In 1973, Jacqueline Remy told in L’Express the story of Catherine Bakouche, who died at the age of 23, after trying to abort. The mother of a young child had dared to speak to anyone about her second pregnancy and, as for a woman in a thousand at the time, her attempted abortion had cost her life. In 2025, fifty years after The promulgation of the Veil lawformer Minister Laurence Rossignol, at the origin of the bill tabled in the Senate, wishes to rehabilitate women who have aborted illegally.
In the Express of December 24, 1973
Rouen: “Let us live!”
The deputies saved the 1920 law prohibiting abortion. Women, in France, continue, to die.
On the night of December 3 to 4, a 23 -year -old young woman, Catherine Bakouche, tried to have an abortion. Alone. She died. Scandalous? Banal. The Keeper of the Seals, Mr. Jean Taittinger, said it the other Thursday before the Assembly: “A thousand illegal abortions occur every day in France. A clandestine abortion in a thousand is deadly.”
Catherine Bakouche – born Catel – was “a woman without stories”. A happy childhood spent in a Norman village, a practicing Catholic family – five brothers and sisters – which they left, equipped with the certificate of studies, to marry, young. For the past year, she had been employed in Social Security in Rouen. She entered it – brilliantly – by competition. She had just been established. Her husband works in a construction company. From site to site, he was perpetually absent. But he called him to the neighbors, and returned every weekend.
A little girl
Catherine was alone, in the evening, in the tiny pavilion that her sister lent her to Canteleu, a “suburb” worker of Rouen. Alone with his son Hassen, 3, a “nervous, turbulent, often sick, but so kind child,” said her grandmother. Rather secret, – She had few friends. Each morning, a little strong silhouette and without primer, she was driving Hassen to her nanny, with a bicycle. While waiting to be able to afford a car. Her dream: a small house well to her. We saved, among the Bakouche. And we also thought of a second child. “I would love a little girl,” Catherine had one day sighed. But not so fast. The first was so “difficult”. The nurses are rare and expensive. And the accommodation so small …
When, a month or two ago, she knew she was pregnant, Catherine probably did not speak to her husband, who does not admit contraception or abortion. She did not share with her mother, a woman in the countryside, fulfilled, generous, who, today, implores: “I did not have these ideas. She knew it. But now, tell women from taking the pill, above all, that they are hurrying.”
At the nanny of her son, to her neighbor, Mrs. Jacqueline SISSOKO, Catherine only said: “I have a sore throat right now. It’s not okay.”
Plastic tube
She dared to talk to anyone about it, barely to her office colleagues. She saw two doctors. The first advised him tablets. The second of the bites. Like hundreds of doctors, they made her wait, until she resigned herself. She did not resign herself.
On Monday 3, Catherine worked, as usual. In the evening, she slept her son. She put on a night shirt. And she tried to “pass it” by means of a plastic tube 30 cm long.
It was found around forty hours later, extended across his bed, open eyes, bloody mouth. At his feet lied the “probe”, full of blood clots. The door was locked, the shutters enclosed. The child, Hagard, had put the house on top undering: he had emptied all the cupboards, and even unpacked his Christmas gifts. He had spent thirty-four hours less near the corpse. Catherine Bakouche could have been addressed to these doctors who took 2,000 to 3,000 francs for an abortion. It could have been addressed to the family planning, which organizes debates to the works council of Social Security. But at the Rouen schedule, for lack of staff, for lack of means, we must make an appointment six weeks in advance. It could have been addressed to the doctors of the Information Health (GIS) group in Rouen, who, in three months, practiced 85 abortions on the 800 requests they received.
She could have, she could have … it was to forget that she was alone, badly informed, that she had no money, that she was afraid. It is to forget, above all, that she felt guilty. Like these women of small employees and canteleu workers who await a second unwanted pregnancy before deciding to take the pill. “They are afraid to grow, to have cancer, to have monstrous children. They are afraid of their husband, says a doctor in the region. But, in front of the irreparable, all the means are good: soapy water, permanganate tablets, bleach, mortal rod.”
In Canteleu, today, when we say the name of Mrs. Bakouche, the faces close. And he found himself someone on the day of the burial, to protest: “We must not bury him in church”.