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May 31, 2013

El Salvador to Allow C-Section for "Beatriz" After Court Denies Life-Saving Abortion 
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El Salvador's Health Minister has reportedly given permission for an
ailing woman to undergo a C-section to end a pregnancy her doctors say
is killing her. The 22-year-old woman, known as "Beatriz," told the AFP
she will have surgery next week. She suffers from lupus and kidney
problems and is carrying a roughly 6-month-old fetus that lacks a brain
and cannot survive. Her case drew international outrage as she begged
for her life for several weeks under El Salvador's strict abortion ban.
The decision to allow surgery came one day after the country's Supreme
Court rejected her plea for an abortion and the same day that the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica ordered El Salvador
to provide her with life-saving care. Speaking from the hospital,
Beatriz said: "What they did to me was not right. They made me suffer by
waiting all this time here in the hospital."

 

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