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[Miles Quaritch]

I know I've posted a couple of articles already and I'm not posting this to shock people, but this one really deserves some attention for the horrible miscarriage of justice that's happened. It also ties into a wider look at how the fight for reproductive rights is far from over and similar miscarriages of justice happen in the US.

A teenage rape victim in El Salvador has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder after having a stillbirth, the latest in a long line of failures of justice against pregnant women in the Central American country.

Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, 19, from a small rural community in Cuscatlán, eastern El Salvador, was convicted on the grounds that failing to seek antenatal care amounted to murder.

Hernandez, a high school student, gave birth into the toilet in April 2016 after falling ill with acute back and stomach pain.

Hernandez, who at the time was 18, was in her third trimester, but hadn’t realised that she was pregnant. She had been repeatedly raped by a gang member over several months as part of a forced sexual relationship.

Medical experts were unable to ascertain whether the foetus died in utero or in the moments after delivery.

The female judge accepted the prosecutor’s claims that Hernandez failed to seek antenatal care because she did not want the baby, and threw him into the toilet intending to kill him.

In sentencing, the judge went further and suggested that Hernandez could not have acted alone and that her mother may also be criminally responsible.

According to Morena Herrera, executive director of the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion, the verdict was based on prejudices held by the prosecutor and judge.

“The judgment sentencing Evelyn to 30 years in prison shows how in El Salvador justice is applied without direct proof, without sufficient evidence that clarifies what a woman has done,” Herrera said.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...e-victim-sentenced-30-years-prison-stillbirth

Not to take anything away from this horrible story, it's also worth highlighting that women in the US have also been arrested for having miscarriages and stillbirths.

Since 1973, at least 1,000 women have been subjected to arrests or equivalent deprivations of liberty in which it is clear that but for pregnancy, their conduct would not have been investigated or punished. Otherwise non-criminal acts such as attempting suicide, falling down a flight of stairs, drinking alcohol, failing to get bed rest, not consenting to surgery, and using drugs (as opposed to possessing drugs) become criminal acts because the woman is pregnant.

Women who have had stillbirths and miscarriages have been charged with homicide and feticide. Women who have gone to term and given birth but allegedly risked harm by drinking alcohol or using a controlled substance have been charged with crimes such as child abuse, delivery of drugs to a minor (through the umbilical cord), and chemical endangerment of a child. And like Patel, women have been charged with a variety of crimes for having or attempting to have an abortion.

Those targeted for arrest are overwhelmingly low income and a disproportionate number are women of color

https://thinkprogress.org/criminalization-pregnancy-us-43e4741bb514

Seven and a half years ago, a Mississippi teenager named Rennie Gibbs went into premature labor and delivered a stillborn baby girl named Samiya. Initially, experts attributed the baby’s death to the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. But when traces of a cocaine byproduct showed up on the autopsy report, a medical examiner declared the stillbirth a homicide and cited cocaine toxicity as the cause. Shortly afterward, the 16-year-old Gibbs was charged with murder, specifically “depraved heart murder”, a charge that can carry a sentence of up to 20 years to life in prison.

Since her grand-jury indictment in 2007, Gibbs’s team of attorneys has been fighting for the charges to be dropped on both technical and legal grounds. The defense argues that there's no scientific proof that cocaine use can cause a stillbirth – and that the “depraved heart murder” statute did not apply to unborn children at the time of Samiya’s death. A decision is expected any day now as to whether the Gibbs case will finally proceed to trial or get dismissed. If it does go to trial, and Gibbs is convicted of murder for being 16 and pregnant, then a dangerous precedent may be established that should make anyone with a uterus feel very afraid.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...h-murder-miscarriage-pregnant-women-criminals

Lots more at each link.

 

[Vermillion]

What the fuck.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

Speechless

 

[Tom Nook]

........Disgusting, just disgusting.

 

[thescience]

Revolting. Unbelievable.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

This is just sad all around.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

i legit thought this was going to be from somewhere around the south of usa, never knew el salvador had this kind of fucked up laws

 

[Frozenprince]

And this is why Roe v is important, we'll have states in the grand ole US of A where this becomes the law of the land.

 

[SoundLad]

This is probably one of the most fucked up things I've ever read anywhere ever, and I don't say that lightly.

Absolutely bonkers, what the fuuuuuuuuuuuuck

 

[snacknuts]

There was already a thread about this: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1402587

 

[F0rneus]

That is revolting to say the least. What the bloody hell?

 

[HeySeuss]

I think the important piece of the story is that she threw the baby in the toilet. Not so much that she didn't get the proper care.

 

[ShyMel]

She spent a week handcuffed to a hospital bed while being treated for severe anaemia and a urinary tract infection, and has been detained ever since.

Didn't even get to relax after the ordeal and dealing with medical complications.

 

[Alter_Fridge]

Interesting use of 'miscarriage of justice'

But seriously this is next levels of fucked up

 

[Volimar]

I think the important piece of the story is that she threw the baby in the toilet. Not so much that she didn't get the proper care.

?

Hernandez, a high school student, gave birth into the toilet in April 2016 after falling ill with acute back and stomach pain.

 

[capitalCORN]

I think the important piece of the story is that she threw the baby in the toilet. Not so much that she didn't get the proper care.

Who's the witness?

 

[gaiages]

I think the important piece of the story is that she threw the baby in the toilet. Not so much that she didn't get the proper care.

You believing the prosecutor's claim on this? lol

 

[sixteen-bit]

So fucked up.

 

[John Rabbit]

I genuinely thought this happened in the U.S. before I entered the thread.

 

[HeySeuss]

You believing the prosecutor's claim on this? lol

Ah my bad. I missed it in the first paragraph. But it also says that they can't prove that it was stillborn so the thread is somewhat misleading already. No matter what it's a terrible situation.

 

[RinsFury]

So fucking infuriating. Fuck.

 

[Linkura]

No wonder so many people are trying to flee El Salvador.

 

[Linkark07]

Yep, read about this yesterday. This just shows how backward Latin America is in Human Rights, and how powerful the Catholic Church is here. Read in the comments yesterday that any kind of abortion is completely forbidden in El Salvador since 1998, and the lawmakers don't want to change that law.

Completely awful, completely inhuman, completely fucked up.

 

[gaiages]

Ah my bad. I missed it in the first paragraph. But it also says that they can't prove that it was stillborn so the thread is somewhat misleading already. No matter what it's a terrible situation.

The main thing is, the poor girl didn't even know she was pregnant, and whether that baby lived two minutes before it died or not didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The baby would have died regardless, given the situation.

Basically this is a young woman that was raped repeatedly, got pregnant and didn't even know it, and now has to pay 30 years of her life for being in a terrible, horrifying situation. It's beyond disgusting.

 

[JoJoShabadoo]

Hernandez, a high school student, gave birth into the toilet in April 2016 after falling ill with acute back and stomach pain.

Fuuuuck.

 

[Doodis]

I weep for humanity.