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Few seem to have noticed this recent decision, but it’s an epic victory in the pro-life cause...

Michie

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Roe v. Wade for Latin America was averted and the right to life upheld. This is what took place late last month in the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in Beatriz vs. El Salvador. But headlines obscured this victory for life and portrayed the ruling as a milestone in the quest for abortion rights in Latin America and around the world (see here and here).

(See this earlier post with a video of the testimony of Paolo Carozza of Notre Dame Law School, whom the court called as an expert witness in the case.)

Why was Beatriz a victory for life?

Beatriz, an impoverished 22 year-old woman in El Salvador, gave birth in 2013 to a baby that had been diagnosed with anencephaly, a rare brain disorder, and the baby died not long after birth, as is sadly typical in such cases. Beatriz recovered from the birth without complications but was killed four years later in a motorcycle accident.

Abortion advocacy groups then decided to bring a suit against El Salvador’s government in hopes of eliciting a major ruling against the country’s laws prohibiting abortion. Beatriz’s death, they claimed, had resulted from her not enjoying a “human right to abortion.” After they lost their case before El Salvador’s Supreme Court, they brought the case before the IACHR, hoping further that this regional court would establish a right to abortion for all of Latin America.

Continued below.