The pressure for El Salvador to legalize abortion has been heavy for years and continues to climb amid false stories of women allegedly imprisoned for miscarriage, stillbirth, and ‘obstetric emergencies’. At the center of the legal case that could push El Salvador into legalizing abortion is the story of one woman who allegedly died after being denied an abortion — but this is a complete deception.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been hearing the case of Beatriz v. El Salvador, about a woman who was denied an abortion in the nation and, according to the media, ‘later died’. The court will rule whether or not pro-life laws violate a woman’s right to life and health based on this case, and a pro-abortion ruling could force El Salvador (and other pro-life nations) to legalize abortion.
But there is serious manipulation behind the scenes and in the media. Beatriz Garcia, the woman at the core of the case, did not die from a lack of access to induced abortion. In fact, she never had life-threatening pregnancy complications, doctors never advised abortion, and she died four years later in a vehicle accident.
And the more than 50 women allegedly jailed for miscarriages and obstetric emergencies due to El Salvador’s pro-life laws, including Alba Lorena Santos, were not actually convicted for abortion but for infanticide. Foreign Policy recently published a pro-abortion piece highlighting Santos and the death of her baby boy, exploiting her son’s murder to bolster support for legalized abortion in El Salvador and around the world.
Warning: Grapic images below
The pro-life law ‘too popular’ to overturn
According to Foreign Policy, El Salvador’s pro-life law may be “too popular to overturn.”
“The ban continues to be popular, particularly as anti-abortion evangelical churches with strong connections to the United States have gained influence here, and advocates in El Salvador warn the United States could be heading down its path,” said the media outlet.
Pro-abortion organizations and the media have long claimed that women in El Salvador are being imprisoned for miscarriages, stillbirths, and medical emergencies during pregnancy. When Roe v. Wade was first threatened by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that would eventually take it down, the media began churning out stories of women in El Salvador allegedly jailed for miscarriage with the warning that the same would happen in the United States if Roe fell. This has proven to be untrue, and this is because women in El Salvador are not regularly being arrested for miscarriage, nor is this occurring in the U.S.
Planned Parenthood’s director of news content, Kate Smith, told Americans in 2022 that women could be jailed for miscarriages if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, erroneously using cases in El Salvador as examples.
Dr. José Miguel Fortín-Magaña Leiva, the former director-general of the Dr. Roberto Masferrer Institute of Forensic Medicine of El Salvador, deflated Smith’s claims. He said that she “is at best absolutely mistaken when she claims that in El Salvador women are imprisoned and harassed for induced abortions.”
“But even worse, that those who have suffered a miscarriage are also prosecuted and imprisoned by an infamous law,” He added. “As former director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and as a doctor, I can assure you that the foregoing is totally false; there’s not a single case of women imprisoned for that reason.”
The pro-life organization Fundación Vida SV has been documenting the cases of women allegedly jailed for miscarriage and other pregnancy-related tragedies and has shared information from the court cases as well as images of some of the children that allegedly died from natural causes. It is clear from the images and witness testimony that these children were actually killed after birth by horrific means such as strangulation and stabbing.
The truth about Alba Lorena Santos
According to VDIA SV, in December of 2009, Santos said her pregnancy was the result of rape (an ongoing crisis in the nation), and claimed she suddenly went into labor at five months and sent her daughter to the neighbors for help. She said she fainted and when she woke up the neighbor told her the baby boy had died after dropping to the ground while Santos birthed him. However, her neighbors told a much different story.
Alba Lorena Santos’ son.
The neighbors said they went to Santos’ home after hearing very loud music. They knocked on the door until Santos finally opened it. They said her legs were covered in blood and inside the home was a black bag in which the newborn baby was found with lacerations near his nose and on his neck. An autopsy found that the baby had been hit with something hard enough to cause a “severe cranioencephalic trauma, of a blunt type, plus neck compression” and that a fall of 50 centimeters at birth could not cause such a fracture. It was determined that he was born alive and Santos killed him.
After pressure from pro-abortion groups, former Minister of Security Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde released Santos from prison in 2019 through a commutation of her sentence, which meant she was partially pardoned, but not acquitted of the charges. She is still legally guilty of killing her baby.
She is not the only convicted killer who is being used by the pro-abortion lobby to try to force pro-life El Salvador to legalize abortion. Others include Evelin Del Carmen Sánchez Cabrera, Maria Edis Hernández Méndez de Castro (known as Manuela), and María del Tránsito Orellana Martínez.
Cabrera’s newborn daughter was found “wrapped in rags moaning in pain inside a septic tank.” She had been stabbed in the chest and neck and died from severe blunt trauma and a perforated lung.
Manuela’s son died from hemorrhaging caused by “tearing off the umbilical cord at its base.” The medical expert indicated that “apparently it was burst violently” and the boy also had “mechanical obstruction of the upper passages” from feces from the septic tank he was tossed into.
Martínez’s newborn daughter was found with laces tied around her neck and her cause of death was “strangulation suffocation.”
The truth about Beatriz Garcia
In 2013, Beatriz Garcia. who had lupus, requested an abortion, saying she was “not seriously ill, but I feel bad, because I get really tired and I’m short of breath,” adding, “I’d like to interrupt the pregnancy now.” She sent a plea to the president of El Salvador and had the support of the United Nations, the Inter-Amiercan Commission on Human Rights, and the health ministry, but the Supreme Court of Justice refused her request.
Three doctors had signed a document stating that Garcia’s lupus was stable and they recommended that the pregnancy and medical treatment continue. She eventually gave birth via C-section and her daughter, Leilani, died soon after from anencephaly, a condition in which the skull does not properly form.
As for Garcia, she did not die from complications of pregnancy but instead died four years later as the result of a vehicle accident. Yet, pro-abortion media are manipulating the situation to make it appear as though Garcia died as a result of the pregnancy and the inability to abort. And now the Inter-American Court of Human Rights could rule that pro-life laws violate a woman’s rights — all because of a lie.
Intentional killing via induced abortion is not necessary
It’s clear that these children’s lives and deaths are being exploited in order to spread the culture of death into nations that are hanging by a thread to their pro-life values and laws. But, induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child — is not medically necessary. It isn’t necessary to save a woman’s life, and it isn’t necessary for children diagnosed with life-threatening health conditions during pregnancy.
If a pregnancy must end, the child can be delivered alive and doctors can provide medical care to both mother and child. It is unnecessary to take the time to ensure the child is dead prior to delivery. Treatment for ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage and preterm delivery or emergency C-section are not induced abortions and are not prohibited by pro-life laws.
