The Central American country is in the dock at the Inter-American Court, based in Costa Rica, for alleged human rights violations and "torture" for forcing a woman, identified as "Beatriz", to carry an unviable fetus despite risks to her health.

El Salvador has formally banned abortion since 1998 under penalty of imprisonment of up to 8 years. The country's courts often try women who abort guilty of aggravated homicide and impose sentences of up to 50 years in prison.

"The fact that the court agreed to hear this case makes it clear that the denial of any health services, including controversial ones such as abortion, is a violation of human rights," said Maria Antonieta Alcalde of the reproductive rights NGO Ipas, who is among the plaintiffs.

Beatriz, who died in a road accident in 2017, was suffering from an autoimmune disease when she became pregnant for the second time in 2013, at the age of 20, after a complicated first delivery.

The fetus was found to be non-viable due to a severe birth defect and moreover, according to court documents, Beatriz was informed that she was at risk of dying if she carried the pregnancy to term.

Women protest for abortion rights and women's rights on International Women's Day in San Salvador, March 8, 2023 © Marvin RECINOS / AFP/Archives

The young woman then turned to the courts to be allowed to have an abortion but her request was rejected by the Constitutional Court. She went into labour prematurely, underwent a caesarean section and the fetus died five hours after delivery.

Form of torture

Gisela de Leon of the Centre for Justice and International Law (Cejil), a human rights NGO that is also among the plaintiffs, believes that the Salvadoran state has "violated his right to life and personal integrity" by forcing him to carry the fetus for 81 days, knowing that he could not live.

"The suffering to which she was subjected, knowing that her right to life was threatened, is a form of torture," she said.

The family of the young woman, originally from La Noria Tierra Blanca, a hundred kilometers southeast of the capital San Salvador, decided to pursue the case in court after her death so that "no other woman lives what she has experienced," according to her brother Humberto, 30, who requested anonymity to preserve that of his sister.

Demonstration in memory of Beatriz, a Salvadoran woman prevented from having an abortion by the courts when her fetus was not viable and her life was in danger, in front of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, March 21, 2023 © JOHN DURAN / AFP

In Latin America, abortion is permitted in Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Uruguay and some states of Mexico. In other countries, such as Chile, it is allowed in certain circumstances such as rape or risks to the health of the mother or in cases of fetal malformation, while total prohibitions apply in El Salvador but also in Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The Inter-American Court will hear testimony from Beatriz's relatives on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as doctors who followed her during her pregnancy. The judgement is expected in about six months.

Rallies are expected in San José, as well as in San Salvador, the capital of the small Central American country.

© 2023 AFP