The case of Beatriz resolves

El Salvador has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world, allowing no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother.   Mothers can be, and are, sent to prison for as many as 30 years for having an abortion.  El Salvador's Supreme Court refused yesterday to vary from that strict law in the case of Beatriz,  a woman who needs to terminate her pregnancy to save her own life.   But her life may still be saved, as this AP report in the Miami Herald describes:   

A seriously ill Salvadoran woman whose struggle to get a medical abortion drew international attention received permission on Thursday to end the troubled pregnancy with a cesarean section. 

El Salvador's Health Minister on Thursday approved the C-section for the 22-year-old woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that she could not have an abortion despite her lawyers' appeal that the pregnancy was life-threatening. 

Ultrasound images indicate that her fetus is developing with only a brain stem and is given no chance of surviving. 

The case of the mother known only as Beatriz drew widespread attention and criticism as she sought to end the pregnancy in a country with some of the strictest abortion laws in Latin America. Salvadoran laws prohibit all abortions, even when a woman's health is at risk, and the woman and any doctor who terminated her pregnancy would face arrest and criminal charges. 

"She is in the hands of top-notch doctors," Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said Thursday. "The medical team at the Maternity Hospital is ready to act immediately at the slightest sign of danger." 

"For me what matters is to protect Beatriz's life," she added. 

Because the pregnancy is 26 weeks along, abortion laws are no longer at play, according to women's groups who have supported her petition. Rather, the health ministry can determine what's most medically sound for the mother versus the unborn baby. 

Just as the government was resolving the case, the Inter-American Court on Humans Rights ruled that El Salvador needs to protect Beatriz's life and integrity and help her end her pregnancy. The ruling does not impact the resolution of the case because the Salvadoran government had already decided to safeguard her life.

Read more here.