Vol. 77/No. 24      June 24, 2013

On June 4 doctors at the National Maternity Hospital in San Salvador terminated the pregnancy of a seriously ill 22-year-old woman, known publicly as “Beatriz,” whose life was threatened by continuation of her pregnancy.

Five days earlier, the Supreme Court had voted to deny permission for an abortion, despite recommendations by her doctors and the Minister of Health. Beatriz, who suffers from lupus and kidney problems, nearly died giving birth to her first child.

Doctors finally performed a Caesarian section on Beatriz, who was nearly seven months pregnant. The fetus, which suffered from a severe brain abnormality, lived for five hours.

“The case of Beatriz has brought the question of abortion to public attention for the first time since the total ban on abortion was passed,” said Angelica Rivas Monge, a spokesperson for the Feminist Collective, in a June 7 phone interview from San Salvador. “There was a broad consensus among working people in favor of Beatriz.”

Before 1998 abortion was allowed when necessary to save a woman’s life, in cases of rape, or if the fetus had a serious congenital disorder.

Several hundred people demonstrated in support of Beatriz and for a change in the law outside both the Supreme Court and Legislative Assembly in San Salvador, Rivas said. There were also picket lines at Salvadoran embassies in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Spain, Canada and the United Kingdom.

To enforce the total ban, the government of El Salvador set up a police apparatus with cops, investigators, medical spies, and a special division of the prosecutor’s office, targeting both women and doctors suspected of violating the law.

“From 2000 to 2011, 129 women were prosecuted for abortion or homicide,” Rivas said. “The penalty for an illegal abortion is from two to eight years in prison. Those most affected by the law are poor women from rural areas.” In some cases prosecutors have charged women who have abortions with “aggravated homicide.” The Feminist Collective is providing legal and other help to a woman who was sentenced to 40 years in prison in one such case.

No political party has come out in support of Beatriz or for changing the abortion ban. “They have all been silent,” Rivas said.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, which carries out research and education on reproductive and sexual health, about 1 million women in Latin America and the Caribbean are hospitalized annually due to unsafe, illegal abortions. The governments of Nicaragua and Chile also ban abortion in all cases.

In Uruguay, a law allowing abortion in the first trimester for any reason was passed last year, after a similar measure passed in Mexico City. Abortion is also legal in Cuba, Guyana and Puerto Rico.
 
 
Related articles:
Henry Morgentaler, champion for rights of women in Canada
Pressed successful fight to decriminalize abortion
How capitalist rulers foist social needs of workers on the family
 
 
 
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