El Salvador: In Prison for 30 Years for a Miscarriage Deemed "Fetal Homicide"

Abortion -- a woman's reproductive rights, in general -- was a discussion that I'd sworn never to further discuss, along with the Death Penalty.

Never think that you cannot be aggravated into speaking, again, on any subject, forsworn or not.

May it please the court, I offer evidence in the form of a previously published short story, Concupiscence.
And may it not offend too many of those Dear Readers not selected as part of a jury of my peers, I believe that Concupiscence should be republished, raised to the top of the blog's detritus. You'll find it now just after this post.

I thought that outburst of creative writing would slay the need.

But Daily KOS, whose daily digests of generalized outrage I more and more ignore, published a blog/article today that jumped out of my inbox and adhered to the vestiges of my retinas.

The reason they are more and more ignored here at The Manor?  A tendency for their bloggers, especially, to underperform in their due diligence. Usually, this is shown up, and, ironically, partially mitigated by, excerpting the original source information.

The beauty of like-minded people that we discover on these interwebs, no matter their journalistic acumen, is that we usually get to read what they are reading.  Ahem, and that "we" are too lazy and stressed to seek out for ourselves.  Sometimes "we" are snooty, too.

Anyway.

For the story in its entirety at Daily KOS, go HERE.
To by-pass Daily KOS and read the cited source material for the story, go HERE and HERE.

For my meager part, and note that this "breaking story" is seven years old, I give you writer Leslie Salzillo's introduction to the source material.  And, heck, seven years qualifies for SILENCE=DEATH treatment in Marlinspike Hall Land, though had there not been a bilious, gut-wrenching setback in "Guadalupe"'s legal case, the next 23 years of her now young life would likely never have reached a wider audience.

So, thank you, Leslie Salzillo -- whose journalistic skills are, in no way, in question.

With some stories, I'm not sure where to begin, because the news has me stunned and almost speechless. I want to turn away, block it out and find something happy to do, or something else to think about, or write about. But I can't. And so I will begin right here - and right now. 

Last week, a young woman in El Salvador who goes by the alias name of 'Guadalupe,' had very high hopes, and was all but assured she would receive a pardon from her 30-year sentence. She had already served seven years, starting in her teens. Her alleged crime? Fetal homicide. She miscarried, and was charged with murder. 

Her pardon didn't come. Guadalupe's freedom was one vote short. Her fate was determined by a Right-Wing congressional majority of 43-42. I can't write about something like this and not feel like I've been punched in the stomach again and again. Guadalupe represents every woman. This is what happens when abortion is illegal. El Salvador is known to be one of the worst countries in the world for women's reproductive rights.

Salzillo goes on to parallels in the USAmerica, in the form of Fetal Homicide State Laws.

If you, too, had tabled discussions of this topic, now is the time for your voice to be heard again.

An easy way to start? Become a signatory to the "Vote NO on National Abortion Ban," a petition drive being driven by Care2, a group supported by the vast citizenry of Tête de Hergé.

 © 2015 L. Ryan