El Salvador abortion ban under international scrutiny from human rights organization

By Carter Sherman on Apr 20, 2017

In 2008, a pregnant, hemorrhaging woman staggered into a hospital in El Salvador seeking emergency care. The woman, a 33-year-old mother of two, had suffered an obstetric injury that led her to lose the fetus. But because her doctors suspected she had undergone an abortion, they immediately called the police.

The woman was charged with aggravated homicide and sentenced to 30 years in prison, where she later died. But a petition on her behalf was admitted Wednesday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an international human rights organization, because according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, she was falsely convicted. The woman, who the Center gave the pseudonym “Manuela,” is also one of thousands of women negatively affected by El Salvador’s anti-abortion laws, which are among the strictest in the world.

Continued at link: Vice: https://news.vice.com/story/el-salvador-abortion-ban-under-international-scrutiny-from-human-rights-organization