Beatriz Trial in Inter-American Court Defies Total Abortion Ban in El Salvador

In a precedent-setting trial at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Salvadoran government denied responsibility for the health of a mother for whom in 2013 the state denied a therapeutic abortion of a fetus missing its brain. They tried to decouple the total abortion ban from the mother Beatriz’s health problems, but the state’s lead witness acknowledged that he barely treated her and one of their experts conceded that abortion is justified in certain cases like ectopic pregnancies.