Marie-Claire Chevalier (12 July 1955 – 23 January 2022) was a French abortion rights activist. She was defended in the Bobigny trial [fr] by Gisèle Halimi in 1972. The victory in this trial was key for the legalization of abortion in France and the Veil Act.
Biography
Chevalier was born in Meung-sur-Loire on 12 July 1955.[1][2] She grew up in a working-class family alongside her mother and two sisters in Paris unité urbaine [fr].[3] At the age of 16, she was raped by an 18-year-old male classmate who attended the same secondary school as her.[4] She then found herself pregnant and asked her mother, Michèle Chevalier, to help her find a means of abortion.[2] She received an abortion underground, as it was illegal in France at the time, but she suffered from hemorrhaging and required hospitalization.[5]
Arrested for a case of grand theft auto unrelated to the rape, Chevalier's rapist revealed her abortion as a means to escape prosecution and obtain his release.[4] Shortly thereafter, Chevalier was arrested and imprisoned.[6] She was defended in the Bobigny trial by Gisèle Halimi, alongside four other women.[2] She was released on 11 October 1972 after a trial behind closed doors, due to her status as a minor.[7] The trial was described as a "political affair" by Halimi and Simone de Beauvoir.[2] In her 1973 book, Le procès de Bobigny, Halimi defended Chevalier's decision to abort and said it was a "citizen act of civic disobedience".[5] The impact of the verdict led to the passing of the Veil Act in January 1975, which legalized abortion in France.[6]
After the trial and verdict, Chevalier continued to suffer from the traumatic event and attempted suicide. However, she maintained some anonymity and worked as a nurse's aide near Orléans.[3] In 1988, she gave birth to a daughter,[5] and years later, became a grandmother.[7]
In 2006, she commented on Halimi's book, Le procès de Bobigny, mentioning that the Veil Act was "a little thanks to me that it was voted, it was a bit mine".[5] The year before, a blue metal footbridge was named in her honor in Bobigny in front of the commune's courthouse,[8][9] but it was closed in 2021.[10]
Chevalier died from brain cancer at a hospital in Orleans on 23 January 2022 at the age of 66.[1][11]