Jailed for losing a pregnancy: how progress on El Salvador’s harsh anti-abortion law is unravelling
Her ordeal began with stomach cramps; 19 years old and training to be a nurse, she knew something was wrong. At the hospital she waited for hours in the emergency department. She had suffered an obstetric emergency.
Under El Salvador’s legal framework, emergencies including miscarriages and stillbirths place women under criminal suspicion. She lost the baby and doctors alerted the police. She was arrested and handcuffed.
“She couldn’t understand what happened,” says a lawyer in El Salvador, speaking anonymously for fear of political reprisals. “She went to hospital with a stomach ache, not knowing she was pregnant, and had an emergency.
“Then she was taken to prison, and faced a prosecution asking for a 50-year sentence. She was in complete shock,” the lawyer says.
El Salvador has some of the most restrictive reproductive laws in the world. Since 1998, abortion has been banned under all circumstances – including rape, incest and risk to the mother’s life – and in 1999 a constitutional amendment enshrined the protection of life from conception. In practice, women accused of terminating a pregnancy have been charged with aggravated homicide – a crime that carries a sentence of up to 50 years in prison.
