Thousands march in El Salvador to demand abortion rights

06/03/2022

San Salvador (AFP) – Around 2,000 women marched in El Salvador's capital on Sunday to demand the legalization of abortion and a decrease in the killings of women in the Central American country.

With slogans such as "It's my body, abortion is my right," "No more patriarchal violence" and "Women are strong and together we take care of ourselves," they demonstrated in San Salvador wearing purple or green scarves around their necks in anticipation of International Women's Day on March 8.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220306-thousands-march-in-el-salvador-to-demand-abortion-rights

06.03.2022

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News

aggravated homicide charges

Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion

International Women's Day

jailing women for abortion

Morena Herrera

pro-choice march

prosecuting women for abortion

Salvadoran women tell of unjust treatment under abortion law

By Marcos Alemán, The Associated Press
Tue., Feb. 22, 2022

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The four women all had sought medical help for obstetric emergencies, and each ended up in prison sentenced to 30 years on aggravated homicide convictions for allegedly terminating their pregnancies.

After spending a combined four decades behind bars in El Salvador, one of the four countries in the Western Hemisphere with total bans on abortions, they were recently released thanks to a campaign by human rights activists.

Continued: https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ts/news/world/americas/2022/02/22/salvadoran-women-tell-of-unjust-treatment-under-abortion-law.html

In a case at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, European groups supported criminalising women who had obstetric emergencies

Diana Cariboni and Tatev Hovhannisyan
3 December 2021

European right-wing groups backed the El Salvador government over the imprisonment and death of a woman for having a miscarriage. But they lost.

One of the groups was the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a branch of the ultra-conservative American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), led by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/europe-us-right-groups-elsalvador-criminalising-abortion/

05.12.2021

Commentary

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aggravated homicide

aggravated homicide charges

Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto

Alejandra Cárdenas

American Center for Law and Justice

Center for Reproductive Rights

Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion

Colectiva Feminista para el Desarrollo Local

European Centre For Law and Justice

European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Family Watch International

Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe

Feminist Collective for Local Development

Fondation Jérôme Lejeune

Human Life international

imprisoning women for miscarriage

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

International Organization for the Family

International Planned Parenthood Federation

Irene Donadio

jailing women for miscarriage

Jay Sekulow

Juristes pour l'Enfance

Latin American Consortium against Unsafe Abortion

Manuela

Neil Datta

Nigeria’s Project for Human Development

Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture

Susana Chávez

World Congress of Families

International court could press El Salvador to change abortion ban

By JULIA BARAJAS, STAFF WRITER
APRIL 17, 2021

About seven months into her pregnancy, Manuela passed out at her family home in a rural part of Morozán in northeast El Salvador.

Her frightened relatives, who had no car, carried her in a hammock to a hospital many miles away. There, a physician asked the groggy woman, who was hemorrhaging and had lumps on her neck, for her husband. He’d migrated to the U.S., she said.

Continued:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-04-17/el-salvador-abortion-ban-international-court

El Salvador – A woman lost her pregnancy but was jailed for abortion. She later died.

El Salvador is committing "gender violence" by criminalizing women with obstetric emergencies, human rights groups argued before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

March 17, 2021 – NBC News

By Albinson Linares, Noticias Telemundo and
Eulimar Núñez

Manuela, a mother of two in rural El Salvador, couldn't even walk to the
hospital.

In February 2008, her relatives had to wrap her in a hammock and transport her
as best they could to the health center two hours away, after a pregnant
Manuela suffered severe pelvic pain, started hemorrhaging, expelled her fetus
and passed out.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/woman-lost-pregnancy-was-jailed-abortion-later-died-rcna440

El Salvador’s abortion ban jails women for miscarriages and stillbirths – now one woman’s family seeks international justice

Juliet S. Sorensen, Alexandra Tarzikhan, Meredith Heim
March 15, 2021

(THE CONVERSATION) El Salvador outlaws abortion completely, even in circumstances of rape or incest, with penalties ranging from two to 50 years. The abortion ban is so broadly enforced that even women who suffer miscarriages and stillbirths can be prosecuted for murder.

Now an international court will decide for the first time whether these laws violate the human rights of Salvadoran women.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-abortion-ban-jails-women-for-miscarriages-and-stillbirths-now-one-womans-family-seeks-international-justice-156484

The abortion cases that could force El Salvador to loosen its ban

Appeal of Salvadoran woman’s 30-year sentence for suspected abortion comes amid ‘green wave’ of decriminalisation in Latin America.

By Anna-Cat Brigida, Al Jazeera
14 Mar 2021

San Salvador, El Salvador – Lawyers are fighting for the release of one of the dozens of women imprisoned for abortion-related crimes in El Salvador in a case that could signal if the country will be swept up by the region’s “green wave” of abortion decriminalisation.

Sara, a Salvadoran woman identified only by her first name to protect her identity, had a miscarriage in 2012 at the age of 22 when she slipped and fell washing laundry. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide but has maintained her innocence.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/14/the-abortion-cases-that-could-force-el-salvador-to-loosen-its-ban

From Herrera to Herrera: women against the patriarchy in El Salvador
The current climate of anti-abortion zealotry fosters brutal regimes that persecute and torture people such as Manuela, who died while imprisoned for having a miscarriage

DEBORA DINIZ, GISELLE CARINO
12 MAR 2021

The voice that conveyed the information to Morena Herrera, from El Salvador,
was foreign. “There are women who have been imprisoned for abortion,” the voice
said, “and they’ll stay there for 30 years or more.” Herrera could not believe
what she was hearing; under the criminal code, abortion carried a maximum
sentence of eight years. Why such long prison terms? Morena Herrera asked the
speaker, Donna Ferrato, how she knew about these women. Ferrato had just
finished a photo essay for The New York Times on the criminalization of
abortion in El Salvador, and she had heard the story from the imprisoned women
themselves. One of them was Karina Herrera. The coincidence of sharing the same
last name helped Morena embark on a journey to identify these women and take the
fight for their freedom to national and international courts.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-03-12/from-herrera-to-herrera-women-against-the-patriarchy-in-el-salvador.html

12.03.2021

Commentary

Featured

30-year jail sentence for stillbirth

aggravated homicide charges

Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto

Alba Lorena Rodríguez

anti-choice torture

anti-choice zealotry

Center for Reproductive Rights

Cindy Erazo

Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion

Colectiva Feminista para el Desarrollo Local

Feminist Collective for Local Development

gender equality

Giselle Carino

Herrera to Herrera

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

obstetric emergencies

El Salvador – Evelyn Hernández is definitively, finally acquitted

International Campaign for Safe Abortion

July 22, 2020

After suffering three terrible years of being in prison and being put on trial
– not just once but three times – Evelyn Hernandez has finally been acquitted
by Salvadoran “justice”. What had she done? She had a miscarriage as a
teenager in 2016, but was initially jailed for 30 years. She was successively
accused of “aggravated homicide with premeditation” and then of "homicide
aggravated by negligence". This time, the prosecutor decided not to
challenge her acquittal yet again. She is now finally free, age 22, to live her
life. Sixteen other women are still in prison accused of abortion or homicide,
however, which may also been miscarriages or stillbirths instead. The courts in
El Salvador don’t seem to mind which it is.

SOURCE: https://www.terrafemina.com/article/salvador-accusee-d-homicide-apres-une-fausse-couche-cette-femme-est-finalement-acquitee_a354448/1,
by Clément Arbrun, 10 July 2020

For a history of the gross injustice done to her, go to
https://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/page/2/?s=El+Salvador, where the first
two pages of this history can be found (going backwards) followed by similar
cases of other women as well.

22.07.2020

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News

#JusticiaParaEvelyn

aggravated homicide charges

Amnesty International

Carolina Jiménez

Evelyn Hernández

jailing women for abortion

Raped, miscarried, arrested: Inside El Salvador’s ‘outrageous’ state-sponsored persecution of vulnerable women

Raped, miscarried, arrested: Inside El Salvador’s ‘outrageous’ state-sponsored persecution of vulnerable women

Dozens of women are serving decades-long sentences in the country for miscarriages and stillbirths, often as a result of rape, with some handcuffed to a bed while they are still haemorrhaging. Lucy Anna Gray speaks to the activists and lawyers fighting to free them and change the law once and for all

The Independent, Tom Ford
Sep 1, 2019

After 33-months in prison for having a stillbirth as a result of rape, Evelyn Hernandez was released. Less than two years later she was dragged back to trial with prosecutors demanding she be sentenced to 40 years for aggravated homicide. The now 21-year-old spent three years going through trials, jail and scrutiny, all while she was still recovering. In her first trial, Hernandez didn’t use the sexual assault as defence out of fear of violent repercussion. It wasn’t until she later received therapy that she would share this information.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/el-salvador-abortion-rape-laws-miscarriage-evelyn-hernandez-birth-a9083021.html