
Cristina Quintanilla
was seven months pregnant when she felt a stabbing pain in her abdomen. She
rushed to the bathroom and lost consciousness. When she woke up in hospital a
few hours later, she was drowsy, in pain, and had no idea why police officers
were stationed next to the bed.
“They started asking
me personal questions and after a few minutes told me I was under arrest for
killing my baby. That’s how I found out that I was no longer pregnant, that my
baby had died,” said Quintanilla, now aged 29.
In El Salvador,
abortion is illegal in all circumstances. The draconian law, which was passed
in 1998 without any public consultation, allows no exceptions. Abortion is
illegal even for women who have been raped, whose health or life is at risk or
who are carrying a foetus that is seriously deformed. In Quintanilla’s case,
she had suffered a spontaneous obstetric complication, which led to a
stillbirth, but she was still accused of intentionally failing to save the baby
and charged with manslaughter. As she lay in hospital, frightened and alone,
she was not allowed to talk to family, and she had no access to a lawyer.
This criminalisation
of abortion has endangered the wellbeing of thousands of women and girls,
according to the Salvadoran Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of
Abortion. They say this is in part because many are now too scared to seek
medical help or even talk about problems during pregnancy in case they are
later accused of harming the baby.
Between 2000 and 2014,
more than 250 women were reported to the police. Research by the Citizens’
Group says some 147 were prosecuted and 49 convicted—26 for murder with
sentences up to 50 years, and 23 for abortion. The vast majority of women were
young, poor and single, and reported to police by public health hospitals.
El Salvador also has
the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Latin America, accounting for 32 per cent
of all births, according to ministry of health figures. Amnesty International
found deep-rooted taboos relating to young people and sex, which mean that
pregnant teenagers are often treated abysmally by their communities and health
services. Add to this an alarming rate of sexual violence against girls–two
thirds of rape victims are under 15 years old, according to official police
figures–and you have a toxic mix of discriminatory policies and attitudes which
leave girls with few options. Suicide accounts for almost 60 per cent of deaths
of pregnant girls aged 10 to 19, according to official figures.
“Those who do not wish
to continue with a pregnancy–regardless of whether their health or life is at
risk or they are victims of rape–have to make horrendous decisions often alone
as there is so little support and they are often too fearful to talk openly
about such a taboo issue as they risk being reported to the police if they
confide in the wrong person,” said Esther Major, reproductive rights expert at
Amnesty International.
The stigma heaped upon
poor, young women is clear. In 2005, Quintanilla was convicted of aggravated
murder (the judge unilaterally decided to elevate the charge during the
hearing), based on flimsy evidence. She was sentenced to 30 years in jail.
“The prosecutor
claimed I had not sought medical help because I was poor, unmarried and didn’t
want the baby,” she said. “The judge convicted me even though the autopsy
couldn’t determine the cause of death. They had decided I was guilty and didn’t
care about the evidence.”
There are currently 16
women serving long sentences, with their only hope of early release being a
parliamentary pardon because every other legal avenue has been exhausted.
Guadalupe Vásquez, 25, who was sentenced to 30 years for abortion in 2008 after
suffering a miscarriage, was released in February 2015–becoming the first of a
group known as The 17 to be pardoned.
Yet any relaxation of
the law seems inconceivable at present. El Salvador’s penal code—and the
constitution—was reformed after a campaign by the Catholic church and
anti-choice groups. A change would need the kind of cross-party support that
simply does not exist. There is no groundswell of public opinion demanding
reform, as the issue is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media unless it is
to report a new criminal case. Reports are largely unsympathetic to the women
concerned. Only newer community radio and online outlets have a more balanced
approach to reporting that recognises women’s reproductive rights as human
rights.
In 2013, people did
come out on the street in support of Beatriz—a young woman suffering from the
autoimmune disease lupus, who was pregnant with a seriously deformed foetus.
Even though doctors recommended an abortion, the supreme court and government
refused to approve the procedure. A relentless high-profile campaign by church
leaders and anti-choice activists included a publicity drive which saw them
taking out full-page adverts promising Beatriz financial support to raise the
child.
Doctors maintained
that Beatriz’s life was in jeopardy and the foetus had no chance of survival.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in support of Beatriz’s right to life,
but the conservative mainstream media rarely covered the protests. Amid growing
international condemnation, doctors were eventually allowed to induce labour at
27 weeks; the baby died within hours.
Since Beatriz’s case,
lawyers and activists defending reproductive rights have been subject to hate
campaigns, threats and intimidation as part of a worrying trend targeting the
defenders of sexual and reproductive rights across the region. The oppression
intensified further when the campaign to pardon The 17 jailed women was
launched last year, according to Sara Garcia, a feminist activist from the
Citizen’s Group.
Garcia told Index:
“This misogynist law promotes a hostile environment ... we’ve suffered threats
of criminalisation, thefts of information, as well as smear campaigns and
defamation in the printed media and on social networks. It makes us feel unsafe
and scared of imprisonment.
“We work to strengthen
democracy in El Salvador by promoting plurality of thought, yet the stigma
generated around what we do by fundamentalist groups means we are treated as apologists for criminality rather than human rights defenders. We keep going
because we know that we’re not alone…there are social and feminist organisations at national and international level that agree and sympathise with our struggle.”
Quintanilla found
herself an outcast when she was finally released from prison in 2009, after a
successful legal battle downgraded the charge to abortion, and after she had
served four years. While in prison, she had studied for her high-school
certificate, taken courses in law and qualified as an aerobics teacher, but she
couldn’t get a job on release. She felt she was ostracised because of the
ignominy associated with abortion. She said: “Every newspaper reported my court
case but not one wrote about my release, not one journalist came to the press
conference where I wanted to explain the injustice I’d suffered. In El Salvador
the church is very influential, and many people believe abortion is a sin and
women’s lives don’t matter.”
Left with few options,
in 2014, Quintanilla made the perilous journey through Mexico to the USA as an
undocumented migrant. In Georgia, she recently had a baby with her new partner
and was “amazed” that her obstetrician openly discussed potential complications
and options, including termination, during prenatal checks. “That would never
happen in El Salvador,” she said.
For Quintanilla, the
law won’t change until attitudes do. “It’s such a delicate topic even among
women and friends that it is too taboo to talk about openly,” she said. “The
only way to change this is to talk about reproductive rights and sexual health
in schools with children from an early age.”
Read related essays here and here.
This article was first published in Index on Censorship magazine. Index on Censorship is a global quarterly magazine, covering free expression issues around the world. It was first published in 1972 and set up by the poet Stephen Spender. Buy a subscription at: exacteditions.com/indexoncensorship.