Salvadoran Woman Released from 40-year Prison Sentence for Miscarriage

Maria Teresa Rivera, who was imprisoned and charged with aggravated homicide in 2011 after suffering a miscarriage, was released from her 40-year prison sentence in May, BBC News reported. When she was found hemorrhaging by a family member, hospital personnel told the police she had tried to induce an abortion.

According to El Salvador’s La Prensa Gráfica, Rivera’s lawyers asked for an annulment of the sentence four years ago, but tribunal judge Jose Antonio Flores refused the petition. Doctors subsequently presented evidence that the death had been due to natural causes.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, director for the Americas at Amnesty International, said in a press release, “[Rivera’s] release must be a catalyst for change in El Salvador, where dozens of women are put in prison because of an utterly ridiculous anti-abortion law which does nothing but put the lives of thousands of women and girls in danger.”