Oscars: Argentina Submits Abortion Drama ‘Belén’ For Best International Feature Film Race

By Zac Ntim
September 25, 2025

Dolores Fonzi’s San Sebastian Competition title Belén has been submitted as Argentina’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th annual Academy Awards.

Based on a true story, the film tells the story of a young woman who is admitted to a hospital with severe abdominal pain, unaware she is pregnant. She wakes up handcuffed to a gurney and surrounded by police. She is accused of having self-induced an abortion and, after two years in detention, is sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide. A female lawyer from Tucumán fights for her freedom with the support of thousands of women and organizations.

Continued: https://deadline.com/2025/09/argentina-oscar-entry-belen-abortion-drama-dolores-fonzi-1236555661/

25.09.2025

El Salvador, where a miscarriage can land you in jail

María Isabel Sánchez
Feb 16, 2024

Lilian was 20 when her newborn baby died of medical complications at a hospital in El Salvador, where abortion is a crime and even the suspicion of one can land a woman in jail.

Lilian was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison for "aggravated homicide" after her infant daughter passed away at a public hospital in Santa Ana in the country's west in November 2015.

Continued: https://www.kulr8.com/news/national/el-salvador-where-a-miscarriage-can-land-you-in-jail/article_d8216c25-f609-5b35-836b-ee0e1035e42a.html

16.02.2024

Commentary

aggravated homicide

Alba Lorena Rodríguez

Arturo Castellanos

Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion

Lilian in El Salvador

El Salvador woman freed after abortion conviction

17th January 2024
By Leonardo Rocha

A Salvadoran woman has been freed from prison more than seven years after she was convicted for having an abortion.

The 28-year-old, identified only as Lilian, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015.

She gave birth to a girl in a public hospital in 2015, but the baby suffered health complications and died there three days later.
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Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68014699

17.01.2024

News

30-year jail sentence for miscarriage

aggravated homicide

jailing women for abortion

Lilian in El Salvador

El Salvador – These women say their babies were stillborn. Courts convicted them of homicide in a country with harsh abortion laws

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
Sun October 8, 2023

A sign greets visitors arriving at a sun-filled two-story house in El Salvador’s capital.

“You must enter smiling,” it says. “Before you come in, you will find an invisible bag where you can leave your sorrows. When you leave, you can decide whether to take them with you.”

Teodora Vásquez knows the women seeking shelter, support or a fresh start here often have decades of sorrows weighing on them. And she’s propped up this sign beside a green plastic turtle near the front door as a first step toward the healing she hopes they’ll start to find within these walls.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/08/health/el-salvador-abortion-homicide-convictions-cec/index.html

Central America: Home to the world’s strictest abortion laws

July 28, 2023
By Ana de Leon

Panama City (EFE) - The world’s strictest abortion laws are found in the countries of Central America, where women can face long prison sentences if convicted of deliberately ending their pregnancies.

And even in cases of miscarriages or stillbirths, women can be accused of killing their babies and end up behind bars.

Four of the 10 countries worldwide with the most severe penalties for abortions are located in Central America and the Caribbean: El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, which completely ban that medical procedure.

Continued: https://www.laprensalatina.com/central-america-home-to-the-worlds-strictest-abortion-laws/

28.07.2023

News

aggravated homicide

Beatriz

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

El Salvador – When Abortion Bans Are Too Popular to Overturn

A court may soon rule against El Salvador’s anti-abortion law. But will that make a difference?

APRIL 24, 2023
By Anna-Catherine Brigida

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador—Alba Lorena Santos had just returned home from running errands when her headache began. She saw blood running down her legs. She was five months pregnant.

Santos told her daughter to call their neighbor, a relative by marriage, for help. She fainted shortly after. When she woke up, she remembers the neighbor telling her the baby—a boy—had died.

The next day the neighbor returned and said the police were there to ask some questions. Still sick and feverish, Santos said she was put into a police car and asked: “Why did you kill him? Not even dogs do that.”

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/24/abortion-bans-popular-el-salvador-latin-america/

Salvadoran women jailed for abortion warn US of total ban

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO and JESSIE WARDARSKI
Jun 9, 2022

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Teodora del Carmen Vásquez was nine months pregnant and working at a school cafeteria when she felt extreme pain in her back, like the crack of a hammer. She called 911 seven times before fainting in a bathroom in a pool of blood.

The nightmare that followed is common in El Salvador, a heavily Catholic country where abortion is banned under all circumstances and even women who suffer miscarriages and stillbirths are sometimes accused of killing their babies and sentenced to years or even decades in prison.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-health-caribbean-religion-8dcebe19ea1d3f20ef288463f4392da4

El Salvador’s jailed women offer US glimpse of post-Roe future

‘Don’t let our reality become your reality,’ campaigners warn after woman is freed after decade behind bars for medical emergency ruled attempted murder

Nina Lakhani
Thu 19 May 2022

A33-year-old woman in El Salvador who suffered a medical emergency while pregnant has been freed after serving a decade in jail for attempted murder, the victim of a draconian abortion ban being replicated in the US.

The woman, named only as Jacqueline, sought medical help for an obstetric complication in 2011, and even though the baby survived, she was arrested on suspicion of attempted abortion. She was separated from her newborn daughter and eight-year-old son, and sentenced to 15 years for attempted murder.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/19/abortion-el-salvador-jailed-women-roe-v-wade

El Salvador gives woman accused of abortion 30 years prison

A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered an obstetric emergency that ended her pregnancy to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide

By The Associated Press
10 May 2022

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered an obstetric emergency that ended her pregnancy to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, according to a nongovernmental organization assisting in her defense.

The Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion said Tuesday in a statement that a woman they identified only as “Esme” was sentenced Monday. The woman had already been in pre-trial detention for two years following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/el-salvador-woman-accused-abortion-30-years-prison-84630286

10.05.2022

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News

aggravated homicide

Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion

Esme in El Salvador

obstetric emergencies

Killed by abortion laws: five women whose stories we must never forget

As the US supreme court threatens to undo 49 years of access to safe and legal terminations, five women who died because of bans on abortion stand as warnings of what is at stake globally

Joe Parkin Daniels, Sarah Johnson, Weronika Strzyżyńska, Kaamil Ahmed and Mercy Kahenda
Sat 7 May 2022

[Stories about:]
Savita Halappanavar, Ireland
Olga Reyes, Nicaragua
‘Izabela’, Poland
‘Manuela’, El Salvador
‘Mildred’, Kenya

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/07/killed-by-abortion-laws-five-women-whose-stories-we-must-never-forget