El Salvador: Catholic Church Cancels Abortion Rights - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

WIN News, Spring, 2000

From 'Reproductive Freedom News,' THE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE LAW & POLICY 120 Wall St., New York, NY 10005

"The Catholic Church in El Salvador has been actively engaged in manipulative tactics to sway an already conservative legislature into passing the extreme laws. The Church bussed Catholic schoolchildren to the capitol to stage anti-choice demonstrations and by confronting thousands of churchgoers after Mass to solicit their signatures on anti-choice petitions. This effort to convince legislators that it is the will of the El Salvadoran people, and not just the Church's agenda.

An already dire situation didn't seem like it could get worse for the women of El Salvador. In 1998, the country's Penal Code was changed to make it the only nation in the world, besides Chile, to prohibit abortion without exception - not even to save the woman's life. But this year, the status of women in that Central American country dropped a notch further, when the Constitution was amended to recognize life from the moment of conception.

At that point, the fetus took firm dominance over women by being declared, in essence, a person whose life comes first. Alarmed by this chain of events, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRIP) sent a researcher to El Salvador last fall to find out how these changes came about. CRLP staff attorney Luisa Cabal says this concerted anti-choice campaign appears to be part of a larger trend by the Catholic Church to intervene in national politics, after finding its conservative family planning platform stymied at more progressive international forums such as the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing. The Church can easily intimidate people into going along with their views. In this case, a general election was coming up and legislators felt pressured to vote in favor of the law[ldots]

As is always the case, restrictive abortion laws do not stop abortions from occurring. Instead, women are forced to turn to illegal means. Statistics are not available regarding El Salvador, but a recent report submitted by CRLP to the United Nations estimates that, in Chile, 35% of all pregnancies (or 160,000 annually) end in illegal abortions[ldots].

The new Penal Code has raised the stakes for any woman or practitioner involved in an illegal abortion. Women can now be sentenced from two to eight years in prison[ldots]Women suffering from botched abortions put off going to the hospital for help - for fear of being reported by hospital personnel and ending up in prison until their condition becomes so serious they run the danger of infertility or death[ldots]"