A young woman in El Salvador desperately needs her failing pregnancy terminated before it kills her, but human rights activists say the country’s supreme court is dragging its feet in making a decision.

The 22-year-old woman known only as Beatriz is four months pregnant and has been diagnosed with lupus, a disease that causes the immune system to attack the body’s own cells and tissue.

Her doctors warn that the disease has damaged her kidneys and she runs a high risk of dying if the pregnancy continues. They say scans also show that the fetus is anencephalic, meaning it is missing a large part of its brain, and would not survive after birth.

But they couldn’t go ahead and perform the life-saving abortion procedure for fear of breaking El Salvador’s regressive laws on Women’s’ Reproductive Rights, which do not allow abortion in any circumstances, even when the life of the mother is at risk.  Doctors face up to 50 years in jail for carrying out the procedure.

Beatriz herself has made a recorded plea to the president, explaining she wants to live to raise her 14-month-old son.  Amnesty International responded with an urgent action and then a global campaign.

El Salvador used to allow for abortions to protect the lives of women, but a right-wing regime changed the law in 1998. 

The case recalls the avoidable death of Savita Halappanavar, and Indian-born dentist who died last year in Ireland.  Doctors refused to perform an abortion on an unviable fetus because the heart was still beating, as specified by the law.  They told her that it was because Ireland was “a catholic country”.  The fetus died in her womb, and Savita died of septicemia and organ failure and died a few days later.