Marie-Claire Chevalier

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]