Time for change: abortion laws in El Salvador

Often begrudgingly, the latest news updates get sent to my phone in the form of a notification to help me keep up-to-date with the world outside my office walls. When I looked down at my screen this morning and read ‘woman jailed for 30 years after miscarriage’, it wasn’t another blunder of a Trump tweet I could simply swipe to ignore. Evelyn Hernandez, a Salvadorian teenager who was raped, has been jailed for 3 decades because she lost her baby for reasons beyond her control - and it’s baffled me.

The abortion laws in El Salvador are some of the strictest in the world with the 1998 reform of the regulations stripping women of any right to choose their maternal fate. All exceptions that had previously been instituted in 1973 were abolished, including the right to terminate the fetus had the mother been raped, a serious deformity in the fetus could be identified or the pregnant woman’s life was endangered. It’s common knowledge that the laws have been hugely objected by many organisations including Women’s Link Worldwide, IPAS and MADRE and yet the country continues to endorse this outrageous practise. The news article released today about Evelyn has brought these atrocities to my attention and the further research I’ve done has only reinforced how unjust the world can be.

According to an article by CNN, the UN Population Fund has recorded that ‘more than a third of all pregnancies in El Salvador occur among girls aged 10 to 19 and nearly two in every five pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 12 are the result of rape and incest’. While the culprits of the sex-crimes remain free without repercussion, the innocent victims are burdened with a potential aggravated homicide charge resulting in a sentence of up to 30 years imprisonment. The lack of education, understanding and empathy the country shows towards the bodily autonomy of women is not only immensely troubling but difficult to rectify due to the government’s objections to acknowledge their right to freewill.

As the women and girls of El Salvador are faced with the terrifying reality of incarceration if found to have terminated their baby, the death rates from unsafe abortion techniques are the second direct cause of maternal mortality. The desperation for control over their future continues to ensure that abortions are carried out in unsafe, unsanitary conditions where the risk of infection and loss of blood ends lives as young as 10. The psychological trauma caused by the obligation for a child to be born even when conceived through rape, or when the child will be dead or deformed hardly bears thinking about and yet it is the undeniable truth occurring under this nations’ twisted eye.

To Evelyn and the other victims of this legalised abuse, I am sorry. I can only hope that the despicable laws that affect present females in El Salvador cease to exist in their lifetime so the undue suffering of women and children surrounding their decisions regarding motherhood can end.

Miscarriage to Murder is a documentary produced by the BBC outlining this issue http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05tp848

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