[1] El Salvador's 1956 Penal Code contained no explicit exception to its prohibition of abortion, although, under accepted principles of criminal law, one could be justified if necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman.
[2] In 1997, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) submitted a draft bill, designed to amend the Penal Code to withdraw all grounds under which abortion was then permitted.
[2] On April 20, 1998, the new Penal Code was enacted, removing the exceptions that had been instituted in 1973, including the provision for the pregnant woman's life.
El Salvador's criminal anti-abortion legislation allegedly violates all of these constitutional and human rights established in the previously mentioned international conventions.
"[3] Unsafe abortion is a serious public health problem and the second direct cause of maternal mortality in El Salvador.
[5] Doctors in El Salvador report that women seeking abortions use a wide variety of methods: clothes hangers, metal rods, high doses of contraceptives, fertilizers, gastritis remedies, soapy water, and caustic fluids (such as battery acid).
All of this highlights the risk to life, health, security of person and liberty that terminating an unwanted pregnancy represents for young, low-income women in El Salvador.
In 23 of those cases, the women involved had been turned over to the authorities by health care workers when they arrived at the hospital seeking treatment after an unsafe abortion.
[8] In an article published in the April 9, 2006, edition of the New York Times Magazine, writer Jack Hitt explored the effect of 1998 Penal Code.
[9] The article was later disputed when it was revealed that a woman mentioned as having been sentenced to 30 years in prison for an abortion, Carmen Climaco, had been jailed for the homicide of what was ruled to have been a full-term infant.
[10] In fact, Karina del Carmen Herrera Climaco had given birth at home and then began to bleed heavily.
[3] Another 30-year sentence was passed out for an apparent miscarriage, in August 2008, by the Tribunal of San Francisco Gotera in the department of Morazan.
María Edis Hernández Méndez de Castro, 30, was a single mother with four children when she found out she was pregnant.
During the pregnancy, Maria felt pain and went to the bathroom in her home at which time she suffered labor complications and passed out.