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Manuela v. El Salvador Amid U.S. Abortion Debates
A woman dies in prison for an unpreventable miscarriage and US Supreme Court debates abortion bans.
As the United States Supreme Court continues its deliberations on whether or not to uphold the Mississippi abortion law, thereby threatening the constitutional legitimacy of Roe V. Wade, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ordered El Salvador to reform its policies on reproductive health.
This recent court order comes well after the death of a woman identified only by the pseudonym Manuela, who suffered a miscarriage at home in 2008. This miscarriage was caused by serious postpartum preeclampsia complications with her pregnancy diagnosed previously by her doctors. After the loss of her child and no doubt great physical and emotional trauma, she was accused of getting an intentional abortion "to hide an affair."
The El Salvadoran government imprisoned her on the grounds of causing the miscarriage through intentional abortion. This led to the conviction of "homicide to the detriment of her newborn son." and a 30-year prison sentence wherein Manuela died in 2010 from undiagnosed and untreated lymphatic cancer while trapped behind bars for a crime she didn't commit.
