Faculty member reports on abortion laws in El Salvador

In December 2024, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) condemned El Salvador for violating the human rights of Beatriz, a young woman who was denied a therapeutic abortion in 2013 due to the country’s absolute abortion ban.

Associate Professor of Politics Cora Fernández Anderson wrote an article for Ms. magazine about the landmark ruling that could transform the legal landscape of abortion laws in Latin America.

Beatriz, a 22-year-old mother with lupus, faced severe health risks during her pregnancy. The fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a fatal condition preventing survival outside the womb. Beatriz’s doctors recommended a termination to protect her health, but El Salvador’s laws prohibited abortion under all circumstances. Forced to continue the pregnancy, Beatriz endured significant physical and mental suffering. She underwent an emergency cesarean at 26 weeks, and the baby died shortly thereafter. Beatriz sustained lasting kidney damage and passed away in 2017.

“El Salvador is one of the four Latin American countries that ban abortion under all circumstances; the others are Honduras, Nicaragua and [the] Dominican Republic. While the bans are similar across the four countries, El Salvador has been infamous for the strict enforcement of the law, equating the crime of abortion to that of homicide,” Anderson wrote. “The abortion ban was passed in 1998, and the following year, a constitutional amendment defined the right to life from the moment of conception, providing the legal basis for the prosecution of abortion as homicide.”

The IACHR ruled that El Salvador violated Beatriz’s rights to health, personal integrity and protection from violence, criticizing the lack of legal clarity and medical protocols that left health care providers afraid to act.

Read the Ms. magazine article.