North Africa is invoked in The Second Sex as a concrete setting in an argument about reproductive autonomy and social inequality. The text states that Arab women there have no recourse to abortion and that seven or eight children out of every ten born die; it presents this toll as evidence of the human consequences of denying women control over reproduction.

Reproductive Conditions

The passage places North Africa within a discussion of abortion and the burdens imposed by repeated pregnancies. It describes women as giving birth to ten children, of whom seven or eight die, and argues that such conditions can erode maternal feeling. The example is not developed as a broader account of the region’s societies; it is a pointed illustration of how reproductive conditions and restricted choices can shape women’s lives.

Argumentative Role

The reference occurs in a critique of moral arguments against legal abortion. It contrasts concern for embryonic life with the lack of concern, in the author’s account, for women facing repeated childbirth and for children who die in large numbers. North Africa thus functions as evidence within the book’s challenge to treating reproduction as an abstract moral issue detached from women’s circumstances.

Limits of the Portrayal

The passage offers a compressed and generalized description, identifying Arab women but providing no specific community, place, date, or source for its figures. Its role is argumentative rather than descriptive: it foregrounds reproductive deprivation and its consequences, while leaving the region’s internal diversity and the women’s own accounts unrepresented.