El Salvador: Woman Gets 30 Yrs in Jail for Aggravated Homicide After Miscarriage

A human rights lawyer says that "everyone in the US should have their eyes on El Salvador right now."

A court in El Salvador, on Monday, 9 May, sentenced a woman, who had suffered a miscarriage, to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide.

The woman, identified with the pen name Esme, was sentenced after almost two years of pre-trial detention.

"Esme's sentencing is a devastating step backward for the progress that has been made in the unlawful criminalization of women suffering obstetric emergencies in El Salvador," Paula Avila-Guillen, international human rights lawyer and executive director of the Women’s Equality Center, told The Guardian.

Activists are arguing that the court sentence should be ringing alarm bells for women in the United States, where the supreme court is considering an overturn of Roe v Wade.