El Salvador Supreme Court denies critically ill woman lifesaving abortion

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Salon

El Salvador Supreme Court denies critically ill woman lifesaving abortion Wednesday, May 29, 2013 05:51 PM CDT

Lawyers for the 22-year-old woman may appeal the case in an international court, but fear for her survival
By Katie Mcdonough

After more than a month of delays, El Salvador’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday to deny a critically ill woman a lifesaving abortion. The 22-year-old woman, identified only as Beatriz, is 26 weeks pregnant with a nonviable, anencephalic fetus; her doctors have warned that, due to severe health complications related to Beatriz’s lupus, cardiovascular disease and kidney functioning, she may not survive the pregnancy.

Abortion is illegal under all circumstances in El Salvador, and the court’s ruling is final, according to her lawyers. “The only way now is to go to the international courts,” Victor Hugo Mata, one of Beatriz’s lawyers, told CBS News.

As Salon has previously reported, in addition to petitions from Beatriz and her doctors, President Mauricio Funes, El Salvador’s Ministry of Health, women’s rights advocates and international human rights groups each called on the court to grant the medically necessary procedure.

But the court was not moved to act, and Beatriz’s life now hangs in the balance, her lawyers say.


Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/29/el_salvador_supreme_court_denies_critically_ill_woman_lifesaving_abortion/

[Dawson Leery]

1. The Roman Church and the Born Again cousins want this in America.

[ltheghost]

2. Exactly

So they are just going to put her life in jeopardy....at times I'm just ashamed at humans. LOL

[meow2u3]

28. Even the Catholic Church allows for "indirect abortions"

Indirect abortions are medical and/or surgical procedures intended to save the life of a pregnant woman, but whose unintended side effects would result in an abortion, for instance, a hysterectomy in cancer cases.

El Salvador and the Dominican Republic have abortion laws even more rigid than that of the Church. It has more to do with machismo than it does with Catholic doctrine.

[RainDog]

29. BULLSHIT

IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

stop lying about this evil institution.

[Dawson Leery]

31. I second your comment.

[rebecca_herman]

3. that's awful

especially since the fetus is basically BRAIN DEAD. I wonder at what point it is legal for them to deliver the doomed fetus and let nature take its course? would a live birth after viability be considered an abortion there?

[du_grad]

15. Anencephaly = no brain

There is a brain stem but no brain. I work in hospitals and have seen two of these children in my lifetime. Neither survived. This court ruling is pitiful.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/anencephaly.html

[Laurian]

4. I'm interested to know the gender make up of that court. While I

know I may be off base here, all too often men are making these critical decisions for a situation they will never face themselves. Religion should not be a factor in medical decision making.

[thefool_wa]

5. Are you kidding, this is El Salvador

There isn't a single woman involved in this decision (apparently including the MOTHER)...I guarantee it.

[Pterodactyl]

7. Wikipedia lists both male and female members of the court.

Last edited Wed May 29, 2013, 10:28 PM - Edit history (1)

It was last updated in 2007, though, so I can't say if that's still accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_El_Salvador#Current_members




President Agustín García Calderón¹

Constitutional

2000



Judge Victoria Marina de Avilés

Constitutional

2000



Judge Néstor Mauricio Castaneda Soto

Constitutional

2003



Judge Julio Enrique Acosta Baires

Constitutional

2000



Judge Mauricio Alfredo Clará

Constitutional

2003



Judge Mauricio Ernesto Velasco Zelaya

Civil

2000



Judge Mirna Antonieta Perla Jiménez

Civil

2003



Judge Mario Francisco Valdivieso Castaneda²

Civil

2006



Judge Ulises del Dios Guzmán Canjura

Criminal

2003



Judge Miguel Alberto Trejo Escobar

Criminal

2006



Judge Rosa María Fortín Huezo²

Criminal

2006



Judge Miguel Ángel Cardoza Ayala

Administrative

2003



Judge Marcel Orestes Posada

Administrative

2003



Judge Lolly Claros de Ayala²

Administrative

2006



Judge Evelyn Roxana Nuñez Franco

Administrative

2006

[lupulin]

10. It's still impressive though

to see someone actually bother to look up information rather than postulate and emote in a vacuum.

[Pterodactyl]

11. I wonder how many people spout off without looking things up! :)

[lupulin]

13. Certainly it couldn't be more than a mere handful:)

[dem in texas]

6. Put her on a plane and take her somewhere else.

How can the church and government have such rigid thoughts? My late sister-in-law was in the same situation back the in the 1960's. She also had lupus and kidney problems and was pregnant with her 3rd child. The doctors told her the baby would not live and she might die, too. She didn't want the abortion, but the doctor told her she had two living children she needed to think about them growing up without a mother. She lived to be 45 years old and died of kidney failure. She told me one time, that a day never went by that she didn't think of the baby girl she lost.

I get so mad when I hear politicians and religious leaders speak against having abortions when they have never had to deal with situations where it is necessary.

[Politicub]

8. This is too horrible to comprehend

It's like a Kafka novel come to life.

I didn't read the article, so this may be covered. But can she be flown to the US for the procedure? I'm guessing someone could set up a donation site ASAP, but I wouldn't know how to get the funds to her.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

21. exactly.

Only Kafka wrote about alienation and the predicament of a man facing attack by his own spiritual demons......or under attack by a cold and totalitarian State out to destroy individual autonomy.

Men write about such evils often, but not too many luminaries of literature have tried to capture the more horrifying scenario of being under attack by your own body and then forced by State imposed Fetus Fascism to be destroyed bit by bit, slowly and relentlessly by the growing organism within your own body.

Perhaps only Margaret Atwood has addressed the pure horror FOR WOMEN of forced enslavement to one's body that women living in misogynistic regimes.

Well, it makes for great science horror fiction, though, as long as the threat is externalized and made salient for men by using metaphors of arachnoidal aliens penetrating and bursting forth from the body.

[hrmjustin]

9. Can she travel to another country or is that not possible?

[Pterodactyl]

12. If it is not resolved soon, she'll be far enough along for a C-section.

[SunSeeker]

14. This is the insanity that occurs when religion rules a country. Sickening. nt

[mountain grammy]

19. +1000

[David__77]

17. I wonder why she does not travel.

Of course this is El Salvador, where the policy will seize the uterus as evidence.

[Judi Lynn]

18. SALVADORAN COURT DENIES ABORTION TO AILING WOMAN, CITING STRICT PROHIBITION

SALVADORAN COURT DENIES ABORTION TO AILING WOMAN, CITING STRICT PROHIBITION

Posted on May 29, 2013 at 9:32 PM
Updated today at 9:33 PM
c.2013 New York Times News Service

MEXICO CITY — 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-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 4-1 ruling, the court cited the country’s legal “impediment to authorize the practice of abortion,” and ruled that the “the rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those” of the fetus.

More:
http://www.khou.com/news/world/209442761.html

[Auntie Bush]

24. Why are the the rights of the non-viable fetus privileged over those of the mother?

That doesn't make any sense? Is that what Jesus would do? lol

[mountain grammy]

20. This is where we're headed.. wake up women of America!

Women who vote Republican are idiots!

[Judi Lynn]

22. These pro-lifers are fine when women die

Thursday, May 30, 2013 09:37 AM CDT
These pro-lifers are fine when women die

El Salvador's strict abortion laws mean a woman's likely to die. Laws in other countries, and here, aren't better

By Mary Elizabeth Williams


[font size=1]
Women stand chained together outside the Supreme Court during a protest in San Salvador May 15, 2013.
(Credit: Reuters/Ulises Rodriguez)[/font]

This is the culture of life that abortion foes are trying to protect: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of El Salvador upheld, by a 4 – 1 vote, its strict ban on abortion, refusing to allow a 22-year-old woman to end her pregnancy. That woman, and her baby, are likely now going to die.

The woman, known only Beatriz, is 26 weeks pregnant and has been suffering from lupus and kidney problems, which have worsened as her fetus has grown. The baby, meanwhile, has anencephaly – a developmental disorder in which parts of the brain and skull are missing. In affirming its decision, the court declared that “the rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those” of the fetus. One of Beatriz’s lawyers, Víctor Hugo Mata, said: “The court placed the life of the anencephalic baby over Beatriz’s life. Justice here does not respect the rights of women.”

El Salvador is far from the only place in the world where a fetus – even a non-viable one – takes precedence over the health and life of a woman. In Ireland right now, new obstetric emergency procedures are being implemented and new laws protecting the lives of mothers are finally being debated, following the brutal death of of Savita Halappanavar and her baby in a Galway hospital last fall. Amnesty International this month called Ireland’s strict current abortion policy “out of line with international human rights standards.”

More:
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/30/these_pro_lifers_are_fine_when_women_die/

[Zoeisright]

23. The El Salvador Supreme Court should be arrested for

murder.

[alp227]

25. This is what would happen if the Christian Right had their way in the USA. n/t

[RainDog]

30. That includes the Catholic church

people here try to pretend the religious right is just protestant fundie assholes but it's also the catholic church.

no one in the hierarchy of the catholic church in any place in the world holds beliefs that are aligned with standards of international human rights for women.

[Dawson Leery]

32. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is a dictatorship.

Certainly they are opposed to human rights for women.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

26. A good case for an abortion with a legal defense of necessity.

Necessary to save the mother's life; the fetus will certainly die.

[Hissyspit]

27. Insanity.