Jack Hitt has an article in Sunday's NYT detailing abortion in El Salvador today.
In 1997, the Catholic Church and the conservatives worked to first pass a law banning all abortion, even in case of rape and incest, and even in cases where the life of the mother was at risk. Yes, even then. Their reasoning is that in today's medical world, the woman's life is never at risk.
Not content with that, they then changed the constitution
Article 1 of El Salvador's constitution declares that the prime directive of government is to protect life from the "very moment of conception."
Please make the jump with me.
In order to fight the crime of abortion, El Salvador's instituted penalties.
The penal code detailing the Crimes Against the Life of Human Beings in the First Stages of Development provides stiff penalties: the abortion provider, whether a medical doctor or a back-alley practitioner, faces 6 to 12 years in prison. The woman herself can get 2 to 8 years. Anyone who helps her can get 2 to 5 years. Additionally, judges have ruled that if the fetus was viable, a charge of aggravated homicide can be brought, and the penalty for the woman can be 30 to 50 years in prison.
If a woman is accused of the crime of having an abortion, El Salvador can inspect the scene of the crime, the woman's vagina. Yes, they have forensic doctors to inspect the vagina for signs of an abortion.
The article notes that South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, when asked specifically by Tim Russert if he would criminalize having an abortion, his response was
...he thought Congress should outlaw all abortions first and worry about the fallout later. "We've got to make laws first that protect life," he said. "How those laws are shaped are going to be a long debate." (emphasis mine)
The law in El Salvador is so stringent that a woman with an ectopic pregnancy (where the fetus has attached to the fallopian tube rather than the uterus) must wait till the fetus has died, or the tube burst, before doctors will operate to help her.
The author of the article interviews women in El Salvador who've had abortions and those who continue to break the law by helping women, and their fear is palpable.
Damn the fuckers. Damn them to hell.
Cross posted at My Left Wing