The seriously ill woman in El Salvador who was denied an abortion by the Supreme Court has undergone an emergency Caesarian Section.  As doctors warned, the fetus had developed without a complete brain and died shortly after birth.

The woman, called “Beatriz” in media reports, set off a discussion on women’s reproductive rights in the heavily Roman Catholic Central American nation.  She suffers from lupus and kidney failure, and the pregnancy posed a serious risk to her life.  Her plight drew international attention.  A medical committee at her maternity hospital, the Ministry of Health, and rights groups had all supported her request to terminate her pregnancy.  And the Inter-American Court of Human Rights last week called on the Salvadoran authorities to take action to save Beatriz's life.

But the majority of Supreme Court judges refused to deviate from the strictest interpretation of the country’s draconian law that forbids abortion in any case, even to protect the life of the mother. The sentence for doctors and women violating that ban is 50 years in prison.

Women's rights groups in El Salvador and beyond welcomed the decision to allow Beatriz the C-section, but condemned the long and risky wait she had to endure until it became absolutely necessary.