 Abortion was prohibited, but the general principles of criminal law allowed abortions on grounds of medical necessity, with reports suggesting they were also permitted for less immediately dangerous complications.Abortion was only allowed to “save the pregnant woman from the grave and permanent danger to life or health that is impossible to avert in any other way”.Although the code does not accept broad health, judicial or socio-economic grounds, and doesn't specify whether a threat to health includes both physical and mental health, it does consider a “grave state of physical or mental distress, especially following rape or incest, or because of extreme poverty” a mitigating circumstance in sentencing.