rape is a legitimate child and thus it would be sinful to kill this fetus. scholars permit its abortion only if the fetus is less than four months old, or if it endangers the life of its mother. when the pregnancy is unplanned and therefore unwanted, as in the case of rape, the parents, abort the fetus and thus prevent the disgrace that awaits both mother and child. also, a mother should be able to decide by herself (in consideration with her parents) if she wants to keep the child even if it was born of rape or zina, as it ultimately hurts her the most the child born of rape, like one born of adultery (walad zina) is a more lowly member of society with regard of the rights he or she is guaranteed and the social status he or she can attain.— muslim scholars were urged to make exceptions in the 1990s following the rape of bosnian and albanian women by serb soldiers. in 1991, the grand mufti of palestine, ekrima sa'id sabri took a different position than mainstream muslim scholars. he ruled that muslim women raped by their enemies during the kosovo war could take abortifacient medicine, because otherwise the children born to those women might one day fight against muslims. fetal deformity some sunni muslim scholars argue that abortion is permitted if the newborn might be sick in some way that would make its care exceptionally difficult for the parents (e.g. deformities, mental handicaps). widely quoted is a resolution of the saudi-led jurisprudence council of mekkah al mukaramah (the muslim world league) passing a fatwa in its 12th session held in february 1990. this allowed abortion if the fetus was grossly malformed with untreatable severe condition proved by medical investigations and decided upon by a committee formed by competent trustworthy physicians, and provided that abortion is requested by the parents and the foetus is less than 120 days computed from moment of conception. abortion in islamic countries in all, there are 57 members in the organization of islamic conference—an organisation of countries with muslim majorities or pluralities. most muslim countries have restrictive abortion laws that permit abortions only when the life of the mother is threatened. twelve members of the organization of islamic conference allow unrestricted access to abortion. with the exception of turkey and tunisia, they are mainly former soviet bloc states. bahrain, a politically and socially conservative muslim state, is the 12th among these countries to permit unrestricted access to abortion. among socially conservative muslim countries, seven countries permit abortion in the first 4 months of gestation for fetal deformities, four countries in subsaharan africa (benin, burkina faso, chad and guinea) and three in the middle east (kuwait, qatar and, now, iran).