Never again': Salvador woman released from prison after stillbirth
The law needs to change so this happens never again." With those words, a Salvadoran woman who spent 11 years in prison after suffering a stillbirth challenged the authorities who locked her up.
"I don't want to see more women like me enter that place. We don't deserve it," Teodora Vasquez told AFP in an interview following her release from the women's prison in San Salvador last week.
Vasquez, now 34, had her 30-year prison sentence for aggravated homicide recently commuted by country's Supreme Court. Upon leaving prison she was greeted warmly by her family and rights groups who had long fought for her freedom.
But many other women like her remain behind bars in this nation of six million people, which observes some of the strictest anti-abortion laws on the planet.
At least 27 women remain incarcerated, many of them convicted after suffering miscarriages deemed to have resulted from illegal pregnancy terminations.
Vasquez demanded that authorities re-examine the cases of those women to "reveal what really happened."
In many instances -- as for Vasquez -- courts deliver convictions for aggravated homicide, which carries prison terms of 30 to 50 years, instead of for abortion, which has a maximum eight-year term.
For Vasquez, her time inside provoked anguish and desperation, unleashing long periods of sobbing.
"There were moments that were so sad, so distressing, because in prison you live with enormous despair. Not everyone comes out whole from that place, not everyone comes out normal," she said, her eyes brimming wet.
Prison "is the worst thing that can happen to you."
Already the mother of a boy today aged 14, Vasquez said she was unspeakably distraught when she lost her baby in July 2007, in the ninth month of pregnancy.
It happened in the toilets of the school where she worked. She telephoned for paramedics but received no response, and the fetus was delivered in a rush of blood, dead. Another employee found her unconscious and called the police.
"That marked me forever, because I had been so proud that I was going to be a mother of two children. For me that was the most emotional thing. But unfortunately my dreams were dashed," Vasquez said.
Locked up, she was prevented from watching her young boy grow from toddlerhood. "That filled me with sadness and pain," she said.
The long years stretched out, until the day this month her lawyer told her that her sentence had been commuted.
"He gave life back to me -- my smile, my joy," Vasquez said.
Part of the problem in El Salvador, Vasquez said, was that poor women found themselves "abandoned" by the public hospital system. Instead of receiving medical help, they risked being turned over to police because of problems encountered during pregnancy.
"A woman with money who wants to have an abortion finds a clinic and gets it done, and nothing happens. But a poor woman does that and she is sent to prison," she said.
That fundamental injustice needs to be addressed, she argued, so "that there is equality -- because we can't say some are worth more than others. We are women and we are in no way different to each other."
During the decade-plus she spent imprisoned Vasquez sought to improve herself, boosting her education from her initial primary-school level to obtain a high-school certificate, and then 30 different diplomas to improve her employment options once released.
Now she wants to study law so she can become an expert defender of other women faced with the situation that swallowed her up.
"That is one of my biggest dreams. It's something I've set myself. I want to fight for them," she said
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Anti choice on steroids
And probably acceptable and/or desired by some pro-lifers here. How any nation can utilize or even consider such draconian laws and complete disregard for individual rights is beyond me.
The countries which do this kind of thing tend to have a long history of Catholic theocracy. It's really quite twisted and puts women who miscarry in a real bind - they have a choice between prison or dying as happened not long ago in both Ireland and Italy. Fortunately in those countries the outrage over these cases has resulted in calls for a constitutional convention to purge all the Catholic sharia laws from the secular law.
Legislation requiring women to prove their miscarriages were indeed miscarriages has been introduced in the US, although it hasn't passed. Google Bobby Franklin of Georgia. He's dead now, good riddance, but he introduced legislation to make it punishable by death for a woman to suffer a miscarriage she couldn't prove she hadn't caused.
Thanks Sandy. That only proves my point that there are those here who want to implement such drastic laws with total disregard for the woman or her rights.
Unbelievable to say the least. I have actually seen people (on the old Newsvine) say if a woman dies or suffers a complication due to "miscarriage" or abortion, she deserves it. Other similar views hold that such a woman isn't fit to be a mother or she should be sterilized or imprisoned. Such contempt for women is absolutely appalling!
No surprise there. Of course, the Catholic Church's position on abortion or birth control is antiquated and archaic at the very least. Not to mention just plain stupid and unnecessary!
Indiana under Mike Pence prosecuted a similar law which resulted in a 20 year prison sentence for Purvi Patel. While the feticide ruling was overturned on appeal, the court upheld the conviction for "felony neglect of a dependent". She was released after 525 days in prison for what appears to have been a miscarriage (and was longer than her final prison sentence).
I remember that case. And this is the kind of guy we have as a vice president. *groan*
There are very few people upon whom I wish harm. They are in that tiny number. I've had two miscarriages. Both were emotionally devastating, and one endangered my life due to hemorrhage. The people who would wish harm on me or any other woman for that can kiss my ass and rot.
I am sorry you had to endure that. My condolences.
Well said! Unfortunately, those who would wish harm or penalty on the woman for a miscarriage (or abortion) probably do not care about the circumstances surrounding it. In their (warped) minds, you are at fault and deserve punishment for it, period. Like I said, such contempt is appalling.
Thanks, Gordy.
When I came across the news clip about Franklin on Facebook, it revealed to me just how far we have to go in the pursuit of fair, or even decent, treatment of women in this country, and how precarious our rights are, when left in the wrong hands. A few more people like him, and I could have found myself trying to prove that I didn't do anything to contribute to those miscarriages. Criminalizing a natural outcome of some pregnancies, and negating the presumption of innocence - despicable.
Pence is a bridge to cross after we come out of tumultuous Trump Tunnel of dirty PornStar Elementary igloo Playmate Cooler Hot Luvino down with Titanic
let's get this blue mess of a dress out first lady style,
and worry about the religious zealot, when we face that next mtn.
F there be Justice, he will also go down like a Stormy Jack Daniels Chaser in brown underwear with a Jack White Stripe on a Jack Black Split Hit on a school of rock paper scissor cutting the tension like a cold knife through rock solid frozen melted butter stick
Then who, Ryan ? WTF
And yet, that's what we would have if we were a theocracy.
Mike Pence also signed a law mandating that aborted or miscarried fetuses be buried or cremated and that the tissue could not be donated or used for any other purpose, and said this was to “ensure the dignified final treatment of the unborn.” That sure stinks of theocracy, and while that law was blocked several other red states have passed similar laws since then. Not only does this drive up the costs of an abortion (directly or indirectly), but it also imposes undue and unnecessary mental stress on a patient who might have no interest in treating that tissue as a person.
The version in Texas was even worse since it required funeral services too:
Another scary sick one,
oh joy
And those laws are even more sick then Pence is! Put on the books by a group of really sick bastards!
Lol I have no doubt that more than a few here think that the US should emulate the Honduran legal system in this matter.
Amazing that a law like that was even allowed to be put in place.
What shocks me is that white women in particular tend to vote for the theocratic conservatives who promise to enact these laws, despite the majority of those women opposing such laws. One theory is that it's Straight White Married Woman syndrome:
Lol the old why think for yourself when you don't have to voting technique.
They need to be reminded that when they are in the voting booth the white men in their life does not know who they are actually voting for. That a lot of women fought for their right to vote and to vote for who they wanted to vote for.
I suspect my mother was one of those woman who looked to her husband for voting direction mostly because her concerns weren't political (or at least I'm guessing she thought that way). But today I don't know anyone likely to do that, not even people from that same generation. Two of the most politically active and vocal people I know are women of the same age my mother would have been today.
So while I think that study about white married women is accurate I still find it quite befuddling.
My dad only recently found out that my grandmother never voted, because my grandfather wouldn't drive her to the polls. She never learned to drive herself, so she depended on him to get around. He voted Republican, and he knew she'd vote Democrat, so he left her at home. Dad said if he'd known about it, he'd have taken Grandma to vote himself, even if Grandpa had been pissed off about it.
No offence but not knowing anyone likely to do that is different than it not happening. I bet there are still lots of people who vote along family lines
No offense taken. As I said, I think the study I cited is accurate but I don't think I personally know anyone today who would do that. The study clearly explains why some (or many) married white women would vote against their own interests and their own true values. I just find that kind of thinking bizarre and alien, but I'm a guy.
Me too