El Salvador pardons woman sentenced to 30 years for abortion-related offense.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
Rights groups are hoping the recent pardon of a woman who was convicted of murder after losing her child to birth complications will mark a turning point in El Salvador's hyperstrict stance on abortion, which is outlawed even in rape cases or when a pregnancy puts the mother's life at risk.
The country's abortion law is among the harshest in the world, not only because it precludes any and all exceptions--an approach El Salvador shares with Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, and a handful of other nations (NotiCen, Feb. 25, 2010, and NotiSur, Jan. 9, 2015)--but also because of how aggressively the rules are enforced. Since the total ban went into effect in the late 1990s, Salvadoran courts have convicted dozens of women, ordering them in some cases to serve decades-long prison sentences.
One of those women is Guadalupe Vasquez, a live-in housekeeper who was arrested and jailed in 2007 after delivering what she says was a stillborn baby. The then 18-year-old gave birth to the baby alone, in the room she occupied in the home of her employer. The family she worked for later took Vasquez to a hospital, where she was treated for heavy bleeding. Doctors contacted the police, who detained the patient on the suspicion that she had intentionally aborted the child. Prosecutors originally charged Vasquez with abortion, punishable by up to eight years of incarceration, but decided later to prosecute her for murder. The defendant was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Seven years later, on Jan. 21, the unicameral Asamblea Legislativa (AL) took the unusual step of pardoning Vasquez. Lawmakers voted 43 to 23 to approve the exceptional measure and thus comply with a recommendation by the Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ), which had reviewed the case at the behest of the civil-society organization Agrupacion Ciudadana por la Despenalizacion del Aborto Terapeutico Etico y Eugenesico. After studying the matter, the CSJ decided there was enough "reasonable doubt" to exonerate Vasquez. It described her 30-year sentence, furthermore, as "disproportionate, severe, and unjust."
"Las 17"
The unprecedented pardon drew widespread applause from rights groups and international organizations, including the UN, which has complained for years about El Salvador's blanket abortion ban and the harsh punishments it sometimes entails. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Switzerland, said it was "encouraged" by the AL decision...
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