“Things are pretty bad when we have to ask the pope to save a woman from abortion opponents”
by digby
Katha Pollit wrote today about the barbaric horror unfolding down in El Salvador and has helpfully included some links for us to use to try to avert this shameful tragedy.
Ten weeks ago, when Beatriz was in the first trimester, the minister of health said she should be allowed to have an abortion. The country’s powerful Catholic Church and far right erupted. Despite stern calls from the office of the UN Commission for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes has dithered as Beatriz’s condition deteriorates and an abortion becomes more dangerous: she is now 24 weeks pregnant.
Since 1998, El Salvador has had a complete no-exceptions ban on abortion, promoted by the country’s powerful Catholic Church and passed with the votes of legislators from the former left-wing movement FMLN—because if there’s one thing right and left agree on, it’s that women’s lives are less important than achieving political power. (Daniel Ortega made the same move in Nicaragua in a successful bid for church support.)
Since the ban, the Central American Women’s network reports that over 600 Salvadoran women have been imprisoned for having abortions, including miscarriages and stillbirths suspected of being the result of abortion. A word to the wise: when US abortion opponents insist they would never put women on trial for terminating a pregnancy, be skeptical.
Indeed. This is where this idea of full personhood for fetuses inevitably leads.
And what Pollit says about the perfidy of leftist politicians is right on. When it comes to
sacrificing for the cause, it’s always the right of women that are thrown on the alter. We’ve seen it time and again in our own politics, even in the past few years.
Sign the petition to Pope Francis urging him to step in and save Beatriz. (I know, I know: things are pretty bad when we have to ask the pope to save a woman from abortion opponents!)
Donate to the fund to help Beatriz pay for her medical care. Any funds left over will go to Salvadoran organization Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto Ético, Terapéutico y Eugenésico, which is leading the legal fight to save Beatriz.
Tweet to the President of El Salvador @mauriciofunesSV.
More here on this heartbreaking case.
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