antilla-dean:

(Updated Jan.

Guadalupe was 18 years old when complications with her second pregnancy led to a miscarriage. She was working as a housekeeper for a well-heeled Salvadoran family, who kindly rushed her to the nearest hospital after she collapsed on the job.

Unfortunately for Guadalupe, the San Bartolo National Hospital is a public health clinic. Doctors took one look at her then called the police, who arrested her on suspicion of murder.

All forms of abortion are illegal in El Salvador. And though there was no indication that Guadalupe, a mother of one, intentionally terminated her pregnancy, the doctors snitched her out to save themselves from any criminal liability.

Guadalupe, who never saw the inside of a fifth grade classroom, was interrogated in her hospital bed without a lawyer. The Kafkaesque trial was brutal and swift. Before Guadalupe knew what was happening, she was sentenced to 30 years in jail and thrown behind bars with convicted murders.

If Guadalupe’s story sounds crazy, that’s because it is. Not only does El Salvador have one of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the world, but authorities there apply the tyrannical law with an aggressiveness that borders on obsessive. Dozens of Salvadoran women — mostly young, and all poor — are behind bars for homicide

The good news is that some government authorities are starting to realize the madness of their ways.

Today— on the 23^rd anniversary of El Salvador’s Peace Accords — Congress will vote on a resolution to pardon Guadalupe, who has already served 8 years of her sentence. The vote, expected to be a rubberstamp approval following Monday’s unanimous ruling by the bipartisan Justice and Human Rights Commission, would be a major victory for Central America’s feminist movement.

“Guadalupe could be released from jail as early as next week,” Salvadoran feminist leader and former FMLN guerrilla fighter Morena Herrera told Fusion in a phone interview. “This represents new hope for us. Now we’re going to have to fight to get pardons for the others on a case by case basis.”

The “others” that Herrera is referring to are a group of young women known collectively as “The 17,” all of whom are serving sentences of 12-40 years. The oldest member of the group is 29, but many are in their teens.

And there are others. At least 29 Salvadoran women are currently behind bars for having illegal abortions, but a dozen of them are still appealing their sentences in court. The 17 women for whom the #Las17 campaign is named have exhausted all judicial options and must appeal for a political pardon. For some hardline feminists, that was a hard pill to swallow since the concept of a pardon still implies guilt and doesn’t address the systemic injustice of the situation.

“Unfortunately, we have no other alternative for those 17 women,” Herrera said.

Any sister for whom this idiocy is reality has my political sympathy.  But before any idiot starts saying “well not in the US,” YES. IN THE U.S. TOO.

Females are LOSING rights.  Losing them.  Because of their sex.