El Salvador should revise abortion jailings

SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador should revise the cases of 27 women sent to prison for having abortions, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged Monday.
Margarette May Macaulay, a commissioner for the rights group and a former judge on the Inter-American Court for Human Rights who authored a report containing the recommendations, said El Salvador should also suspend its strict law making abortions illegal in all circumstances.
The criminalization of women found to have terminated pregnancies has led to 27 women being jailed, some serving terms of up to 30 years.
El Salvador should "carefully review the convictions" of each of the women, the report concluded, based on a visit Macaulay made to the country in Nov.
According to her findings, many women who suffered miscarriages or complications in pregnancy ended up being found guilty of voluntary abortions and jailed in possible violation of due process.
While El Salvador's law against abortions provided for prison sentences of between two and eight years, courts often found the women guilty of the more serious crime of aggravated homicide, which carries a punishment of up to 50 years behind bars.
In Dec, a 30-year sentence against Teodora Vasquez was upheld by a national court, despite rights organizations arguing that she was unfairly incarcerated after having a stillbirth.
Under a law that came into force in 1998, all abortions are illegal in El Salvador, regardless of whether the pregnancy resulted from rape or posed a medical threat to the woman.
The country's Congress has for a year been studying a proposal to decriminalize abortion in cases of rape, the risk to the mother's life or where fetuses are unlikely to survive — but no decision has been made on any changes.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is a rights body that comes under the Organization of American States, a continental cooperative body.
The commission can refer issues to the Inter-American Court for Human Rights, whose rulings are binding on those member states that abide by a 1969 American Convention on Human Rights. — AFP