El Salvador, Dominican Republic can stop sending pregnant women to their deaths

Last month, Maira Verónica Figueroa Marroquín was released from a Salvadoran prison after serving 15 years for having a stillbirth. In El Salvador, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances, women who have abortions, miscarriages or stillbirths can be charged with aggravated homicide without any direct proof. Such was the case for Maira, who was 19 when she became pregnant after a sexual assault. While being treated for severe bleeding following a stillbirth, she was accused of having an abortion and handcuffed to her hospital bed. Authorities detained her the same day and a judge swiftly sentenced her to 30 years in prison for “aggravated homicide.”