Women Who Suffered From Miscarriage Are Jailed in El Salvador Due To Its Anti-Abortion Stance
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El Salvador has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, with the country implementing its total abortion ban. It has been illegal in the Latin American country since 1998.

With its strict anti-abortion laws, over 140 women were imprisoned for being accused of terminating their pregnancy, with sentences up to 35 years, according to a CBS News report.

Reports have shown how this restrictive law has widely affected the lives of women.

Manuela, a mother of tw,o was seven months pregnant when she miscarried in her home in rural El Salvador. However, the police and the court did not believe her. She was convicted of aggravated homicide with a sentence of 30 years in prison.

Manuela only served two of those years. In 2010, she died alone in a hospital due to Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Her lawyers argued that this was a disease that caused her to miscarry, according to another CBS News report.

"Manuela was the victim of a State that does not protect the life and health of women, that discriminates and criminalizes them for having natural complications of pregnancy, and does not provide guarantees to protect the confidentiality between medical staff and patients," Catalina Martínez Coral, the regional Latin American director at the Center for Reproductive Rights, was quoted in a We are Mitu report.

Meanwhile, another woman tried in court for allegedly terminating her pregnancy in 2012. The woman's name is Sara.

Sara's lawyers said that she did not intentionally end her pregnancy, noting that she accidentally miscarried after she slipped and fell while doing dishes.

Police detained Sara at the hospital and is now in prison with a 30-year sentence.

El Salvador's Total Abortion Ban

El Salvador's Legislative Assembly passed into law the prohibition of all forms of abortion in 1997. The passage of the measure criminalized the medical procedure.

It also makes it a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion, or for anyone to assist her in procuring or carrying out an abortion, according to an Amnesty International report.

Women who were found guilty of terminating their pregnancies will be subjected to long jail years.

Ever since the passage of the total abortion ban in El Salvador, many have consistently criticized the measure, arguing that it is a violation of the fundamental rights of women and girls.

However, despite its restrictive nature, the abortion stance in El Salvador has not always been this way.

In the previous law covering abortion, it permitted the medical procedure in some circumstances such as when it was the only way to save a woman's life; when the pregnancy was the result of rape; and when the fetus carried severe abnormalities.

Around 5,000 abortions happen illegally in El Salvador every year, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights' estimation. Some are performed by sympathetic doctors trained to perform the procedure, many were not.

The World Health Organization said that around 11 percent of underground abortion operations cause death to the mother.

WATCH: In El Salvador, A Miscarriage Leads To Jail - from NPR