Marie-Claire Chevalier

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Marie-Claire Chevalier (1955–2022) was a French abortion rights activist. She was born on July 12, 1955, in Meung-sur-Loire and grew up in a working‑class family near Paris. At 16, she was raped, became pregnant, and had an illegal abortion. After she was arrested for a separate crime, her abortion was revealed by the rapist to help him avoid punishment. Chevalier was defended by Gisèle Halimi at the Bobigny abortion trial in 1972, a case seen as political and important for abortion rights. She was released because she was a minor, and the trial helped push the government toward legalizing abortion with the Veil Act in 1975. Afterward, she struggled with the trauma but worked as a nurse’s aide near Orléans. In 1988 she had a daughter and later became a grandmother. In 2006 she said the Veil Act was in part thanks to her. A blue footbridge in Bobigny was named in her honor, though it was closed in 2021. Marie-Claire Chevalier died of brain cancer on January 23, 2022, in Orléans, at age 66.