Women in Saudi Arabia's top advisory council have called for a debate over the ban on women driving, ABC News reported.
Council member Latifa al-Shaalan said the official request was filed this week to the head of the Shura Council and specifically asks to address all "excuses" used to prevent women from driving, despite Islamic law and Saudi traffic laws from prohibiting it.
Although there is no written law against it, senior clerics and other influential figures have pressed their religious edicts on police who fully implement the rule. In addition, females seeking to obtain licenses are denied from receiving one.
Saudi Arabia follows an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism. Under the interpretation, women are forbidden to work, travel, study abroad, marry, get divorced, or enter a public hospital without the permission of a male guardian -- usually a brother, father, uncle, or husband.
A Saudi cleric made headlines last month when he suggested allowing women behind the wheel could negatively impact their ovaries.
"If a woman drives a car," Sheikh Saleh Al-Loheidan told Saudi news site sabq.org during an interview, "it could have a negative physiological impact...medical studies show that it would automatically affect a woman's ovaries and that it pushes the pelvis upward."
A recent campaign has been encouraging women who want to see the ban lifted to drive on Oct. 26 in protest. The campaign began online and has received nearly 15,000 signatures.
In 2011, a Saudi woman uploaded a video of herself driving, causing her arrest and subsequent protests by supporters.
However, al-Shaalan said the request to debate the driving ban was not simply influenced by an online petition.
"It is flawed that a woman cannot drive a car after reaching the position of deputy minister, becoming a member of the Shura Council, managing a university and representing the country on international bodies," she said.
