Latin America News 

El Salvador Judges Delay Ruling on Woman Jailed a Decade Already for Aborting

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Teodora del Carmen Vásquez. Illustration/photo: change.org

HAVANA TIMES – Teodora del Carmen Vásquez is an El Salvadoran woman who suffered a stillbirth in 2007, after the rapid onset of serious pain while she was at work, notes Amnesty International. Police arrested her as she lay in a pool of blood. She was later sentenced to 30 years for ‘aggravated homicide’ under El Salvador’s strict ban on abortions of any kind and has been in jail since 2008.

Her case was scheduled for review but the judges delayed making a ruling. In a news item from Democracy Now she is quoted today as saying:

“They should give me my freedom. They should give me my freedom because I am innocent, because I have a family who is fighting for me, because I have people who love me, and I need to be with them.”

Amnesty International warns that her appeal for an early release is being considered by the same judges who sentenced her to a 30-year prison term over a decade ago.

Women in less than a dozen countries, including El Salvador and Nicaragua, both curiously with supposedly left wing revolutionary political parties in power, do not allow abortion even in the case of incest, rape or if the women’s life is in danger.

  • Eden Wong

    Utterly barbaric. This is one case where they could learn from Cuba.

    • Carlyle MacDuff

      As I read this article I mentally decided to use the word ‘barbaric’ but found that you Eden had already used it. The awful thing about the experience of Teadora de Carmen Vasquez is that the sentence imposed upon her is a consequence of religious fervor. The Catholic Church teachings have been the cause of so much pain, anguish and yes, barbarism. The Inquisition and torture, burning people at the stake, the history of oppression in Latin America all stem from the Catholic Church – which claims through the Pope to be in contact with God.
      There is no mention of the very simple instructions of Jesus of Nazareth:
      “Love thy neigbour.”
      “Do unto others”
      “Turn the other cheek”
      “Thou shalt not worship an graven image”
      The simple messages were distorted and used to form a hierarchical system which led in turn to hideous examples of cruelty by man unto man – in this case by man unto woman.
      Even those of us of no religious faith, can only look at the history of the Catholic Church with horror.