The only reasonable explanation for the public stand-off is that Beatriz and other resource-poor women are politically expendable, and that crossing the Catholic Church is seen as worse than being hung out in the press as inhumane.
As people take to the streets in support of Beatriz, pressure is mounting on the Supreme Court of El Salvador to finally make a decision granting Beatriz a life-saving abortion. Meanwhile, Beatriz’s mother pleads for her daughter’s life.
At a time when religious extremists around the globe have repackaged their efforts to undermine reproductive rights within a call for greater protection for religious liberty, will the Salvadoran Supreme Court of Justice respect Beatriz’s freedom of conscience?
More than 45,000 people in the United States and internationally are demanding that Mauricio Funes, President of El Salvador, immediately authorize doctors to perform an abortion to save the life of Beatriz, a 22-year old woman and mother of a toddler.
International human rights bodies are urging the government of El Salvador to act to save Beatriz. Please add your voice.
Women’s rights groups are demanding that doctors in El Salvador immediately perform an abortion to save the life of Beatriz, a 22-year old woman and mother of an infant.
A 22-year-old Salvadoran woman with severe chronic medical conditions is pregnant with a fetus without a brain. But a 1998 law in El Salvador prohibits all abortions, without exception.
Here in Central America, women are denied life-saving treatment every day. Women with life-threatening illnesses are denied treatment because to do so might harm their pregnancy—just the same explanation that Savita’s husband received from their doctors in Galway. [This article is published in both English and Spanish.]
El Salvador today is not a good place to be a woman. In 1998, the government passed a new Penal Code creating a complete ban on abortion. No exceptions. And now with the pregnancy police combing hospitals, even women with miscarriages are going to jail.
For all of President Barack Obama’s pledges that he stands for universal human rights, the fundamental rights of women are likely to be left off the table when he visits leaders in Latin America this week.
