May 31, 2013

Here's hoping it's not too late to save her life:

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A seriously ill Salvadoran woman whose struggle to get a medical abortion drew international attention received permission on Thursday to end the troubled pregnancy with a Caesarean section.

El Salvador’s health minister on Thursday approved the C-section for the 22-year-old woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that she could not have an abortion despite her lawyers’ appeal that the pregnancy was life-threatening.

Ultrasound images indicate that her fetus is developing with only a brain stem and is given no chance of surviving.

The case of the mother, known only as Beatriz, drew widespread attention and criticism as she sought to end the pregnancy in a country with some of the strictest abortion laws in Latin America. Salvadoran laws prohibit all abortions, even when a woman’s health is at risk, and the woman and any doctor who terminated her pregnancy would face arrest and criminal charges.

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