WUNRN
EL
SALVADOR - COURT DENIES ABORTION IN HIGH- RISK CASE
By
Karla Zabludovsky & Gene Palumbo
MEXICO
CITY - 29 May 2013 - El Salvador’s highest
court on Wednesday denied an appeal from a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to be
allowed to undergo an abortion,
upholding the country’s strict law banning abortion under any circumstances.
Beatriz,
a 22-year-old woman who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her
identity, has lupus
and related complications that doctors say will get worse as the pregnancy,
which is in its 26th week, continues, possibly leading to serious illness or
even death.
Her fetus, which has anencephaly,
a severe birth defect
in which parts of the brain and skull are missing, has almost no chance of
surviving after birth, leading her doctors to urge an abortion to protect
Beatriz’s health before it deteriorates further.
But in a 4-to-1 ruling, the court cited the country’s
legal “absolute impediment to authorize the practice of abortion,” and ruled
that “the rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those” of the fetus.
The court recognized that Beatriz has lupus, but it
said that her disease was currently under control and that the threat to her
life “is not actual or imminent, but rather eventual.”
It ordered that her health continue to be closely
monitored, saying that if complications arose that put her right to life in
imminent danger doctors “could proceed with interventions.”
While abortion is banned, doctors are allowed to induce
premature birth if the mother is facing imminent risk, possibly saving the life
of the mother and the baby at the same time, according to José Miguel Fortín
Magaña, director of the Institute of Legal Medicine, which advises the court on
medical issues.
In the ruling, the court cited doctors as saying that
“an eventual interruption of the pregnancy would not imply, much less have as
an objective, the destruction of the fetus.”
Beatriz’s lawyer, however, described the ruling as
“misogynistic” because it placed the rights of a fetus with little chance of
surviving after birth over the welfare of a sick woman who already has an
infant boy to care for.
“The court placed the life of the anencephalic baby
over Beatriz’s life,” said Víctor Hugo Mata, one of her lawyers, speaking by
phone from the Supreme Court. “Justice here does not respect the rights of
women.”
Last month, a group of doctors overseeing Beatriz’s
care at the National Maternity Hospital sent a report to the Health Ministry
arguing that as the pregnancy progressed, the risk of hemorrhaging, kidney
failure and maternal death would increase.
Legislation in the region, which has been home to some
of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws, has been loosening somewhat on
the issue in recent years. Uruguay and Mexico City have legalized the procedure
during the first trimester, while Colombia, Brazil and Argentina have relaxed
restrictions in certain cases, including rape.
But El Salvador, Chile and Nicaragua have made no
exceptions, not even to save the life of the mother. Beatriz’s case has become
a test to gauge how expansive the shift toward looser restrictions will be.
“This has hit us like a bucket of cold water,” said
Marta Maria Blandón, the Central America director for Ipas, a global abortion
rights organization. “We had the hope that the state would take a more humane
decision.”
Anti-abortion groups in El Salvador praised the ruling.
“Once again Salvadorans have given an example to the entire world that we
defend the right to life of all human beings however small, poor, vulnerable or
defenseless,” said Julia Regina de Cardenal, director of the foundation Yes to
Life.
She said the group was willing to offer whatever help
Beatriz needed, adding, “Abortion is a cruel and bloody murder in which not
only does the child die but the mother is hurt physically and mentally.”
It is up the Health Ministry to decide what steps to
take next. The health minister had said earlier that Beatriz could travel
abroad for an abortion, although she does not have a visa to enter the United
States and would have to obtain a special humanitarian one.
But Mr. Mata said that the trip would pose risks to her health and that she should be treated in El Salvador. “There are many more cases like this,” he said. “There has to be an integrated solution."