Update: El Salvador Will Allow Dying Woman To End Her Pregnancy: ‘What Matters Is To Protect Beatriz’s Life’

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/31/2082891/el-salvador-beatriz-end-pregnancy/

By Tara Culp-Ressler posted from ThinkProgress Health on May 31

Beatriz, the 22-year-old El Salvadoran woman who needs an emergency abortion in order to survive, will now be allowed to end her pregnancy with a Caesarean section. On Thursday, El Salvador’s health minister approved the C-section procedure for the dying woman, whose health has increasingly worsened throughout her pregnancy.

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Over the past three months, Beatriz’s life has hung in the balance as her deeply conservative country has refused to compromise its stringent abortion ban. In El Salvador, having an abortion is illegal under all circumstances and can result in up to 30 years in prison. Even though Beatriz is carrying a nonviable fetus — it will not be able to survive outside the womb for more than a few hours because it’s missing its brain — her government has continued to deny her the life-saving abortion that would prevent her from dying along with her fetus. On Wednesday, El Salvador’s Supreme Court refused to grant Beatriz an exception to the country’s abortion ban, and there didn’t seem to be much hope left for the pregnant woman who has begged for the chance to live for her 14-month-old son.

However, since Beatriz is now 26 weeks along in her pregnancy, her case is no longer subject to El Salvador’s abortion laws. The reproductive rights advocates who have taken up her case say that at this point, the country’s health ministry can decide on the best option to safeguard Beatriz’s health.

That’s exactly what El Salvador’s health minister has decided to do. Essentially, Beatriz will be given a different means to achieve the same ends. Rodriguez will sidestep the abortion controversy by allowing Beatriz to undergo a C-section surgery — which her fetus will likely not survive — instead of undergoing a less-invasive abortion procedure. The Health Department hasn’t yet decided when Beatriz will have her surgery, but she is now “going through all the medical exams” in order to prepare for it.

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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/30/2077371/beatriz-denied-life-saving-abortion/

By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 30, 2013

El Salvador’s Supreme Court has decided to deny a 22-year-old woman a lifesaving abortion, ruling against making a medical exception to the conservative nation’s stringent abortion ban. Without an abortion, the woman will likely die — along with her nonviable fetus, which is missing its brain.

Identified in the press only as “Beatriz,” the young Salvadoran woman suffers from a chronic health condition that worsens when she is pregnant, and her doctors have warned that she is at “high risk of death” if she continues to carry her fetus. Several ultrasounds have revealed that, even if Beatriz does survive to carry the fetus to full term, it has virtually no chance of survival because it has no brain.

Beatriz has been fighting for an abortion for the past three months, and several international human rights organizations have taken up her case. But it’s been an uphill battle in her deeply Catholic nation, where abortion is illegal under absolutely all circumstances and punishable by up to 30 years in prison. After El Salvador’s attorney general refused to grant Beatriz and her doctors an exception to the harsh law, the pregnant woman turned to the Supreme Court.

And on Wednesday, the highest court in the country denied Beatriz permission to access the medical care that would save her life. El Salvador’s Supreme Court took several weeks to deliberate Beatriz’s case in consultation with the Institute of Legal Medicine, which advises the court on medical issues. The Institute determined that Beatriz’s health “was not yet in absolute danger.”

There are no options left. “We cannot appeal the case because this was the last step, the Supreme Court,” Victor Hugo Mata, the lawyer representing Beatriz, told CBS News.

Beatriz has been hospitalized for the last several months, separated from her husband and 14-month-old son. And even though the country’s Institute of Legal Medicine claims that Beatriz isn’t in critical condition yet, a group of her doctors have warned that her health is deteriorating daily. Earlier this month, Beatriz recorded a personal appeal to her president to intervene and save her life. “President Mauricio Funes Cartagena, help me please,” she begged. “This baby inside me cannot survive. I am ill. I want to live… I want to live for my son.” That help has not come for Beatriz.

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