El Salvador

By Shiromi Pinto

Yoshi Garcia is a Salvadoran activist and self-styled “DJ with a conscience”. Aged 24, her interest in gender equality issues started when she was around 14. Since then, she has joined numerous campaigning organizations, including Agrupaçion (the Citizen’s Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion) and Jovenes Voceras y Voceros en los DS y DR (Youth Voices for Sexual and Reproductive Rights). Here, she tells us how she became a passionate advocate against El Salvador’s total abortion ban.

Remember Beatriz?

She nearly died last year because the government of El Salvador refused to let her terminate the pregnancy that was making her fatally ill—a pregnancy in which the fetus was unlikely to survive because it was missing large parts of its brain.

Every year, thousands of women and girls are denied their human rights by El Salvador’s total abortion ban. It doesn’t matter whether they are 10 years old and pregnant because they were raped, or whether the pregnancy is a risk to their lives: El Salvador’s abortion laws force them to carry the pregnancy to term.

Women who have a miscarriage can be jailed for up to 50 years for aggravated homicide, because the state suspects them of having a clandestine abortion.

With no comprehensive education about sex and relationships, and obstacles to accessing contraception, El Salvador has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Latin America. And more than half of all deaths of pregnant teens in the country are due to suicide.

UPDATE: Beatriz send thanks to those who spoke out for rights, after receiving life-saving treatment during her pregnancy.

By Jacqueline Hansen, Major Campaigns and Women’s Rights Campaigner

Twenty-two-year-old Beatriz from El Salvador waited for 14 weeks to receive life-saving medical treatment, knowing that the fetus growing inside her was missing most of its brain and skull and would not survive, and that her own life was at greater risk each and every day due to medical conditions aggravated by pregnancy.

Beatriz underwent a cesarean section on Monday, June 3, and her infant died not long after delivery. As of midday on June 4, Beatriz remained in hospital in stable condition.

UPDATE: Beatriz send thanks to those who spoke out for rights, after receiving life-saving treatment during her pregnancy.

Seven weeks ago, few people knew who Beatriz was, but over the last weeks the plight of this 22-year-old woman in El Salvador has inundated social media networks and travelled across the globe.

Beatriz, a 22-year-old seriously ill pregnant woman who is six months into a non-viable pregnancy and has been diagnosed with a number of severe illnesses including lupus and kidney problems, has so far being prevented from having medical treatment that could save her life.

Yesterday's decision by the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Court of Justice to deny Beatriz her appeal for access to a therapeutic abortion is "shameful and discriminatory", Amnesty International said.

“This decision violates Beatriz's human rights" said Esther Major, Amnesty International's researcher on El Salvador.

“To have subjected Beatriz to this lengthy drawn-out process, taking seven weeks to come to a decision which affects a person whose life is in imminent danger, is cruel, inhumane and degrading".

The Court has also ordered the health authorities to "continue monitoring the petitioner's state of health and to provide her with the..appropriate...treatment...[since]...health professionals are the only ones with the knowledge and necessary experience...to alleviate their patients' suffering and address any complications which may arise..."

A decision by El Salvador’s Supreme Court to once again put off a ruling on whether or not to allow a severely ill pregnant woman to have an abortion shows no humanity, Amnesty International said.

Beatriz, a 22-year-old woman whose case is gathering attention around the world, is four-and-a-half months pregnant and has been diagnosed with a number of severe illnesses, including lupus and kidney disease.

The foetus she is carrying is not expected to survive as it is missing a large part of its brain and skull.

Beatriz is currently in hospital, but has been denied life-saving treatment because it would require terminating her pregnancy. Abortion is illegal in El Salvador in all circumstances, even when the woman life is at risk.

The Supreme Court had the chance to resolve this issue with a definitive ruling – the delay puts Beatriz’s life in even greater danger than was already the case.