El Salvador woman accused of abortion sentenced to 30 years in prison

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered an obstetric emergency that ended her pregnancy to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, according to a nongovernmental organization assisting in her legal defense.

The Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion said a woman it identified only as “Esme” was sentenced Monday and that she already had been in pretrial detention for two years following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital.

“The judge acted with partiality, giving greater weight to the version offered by the attorney general’s office, which was loaded with stigmas and gender stereotypes,” according to the groupp, which said it plans to appeal.

El Salvador maintains a total ban on abortion. Women have been arrested and sentenced to prison after suffering apparent miscarriages that were reported to authorities, with nearly 180 women prosecuted in the past two decades.

Since 2009, the government has released 64 of them, with eight women serving long prison terms seeing their sentences commuted since December.