After a long debate, the regional court confirmed that the right to abortion does not exist in the Inter-American Human Rights System, in the ruling it published on the Beatriz vs. case.
The case had been promoted by pro-abortion organizations to legalize the interruption of pregnancy in Latin America. However, the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) made it clear that the death of Beatriz, a young Salvadoran woman in a vulnerable situation, was not related to El Salvador’s refusal to perform an abortion on her or to its prohibition in that country.
Nor did the regional court agree to declare abortion a right, nor did it consider the prohibition of this practice as “torture”, nor were legislative reforms orderedwhich was the express request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Feminist Collective for Local Development, the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion, Ipas Latin America and CEJIL, who promoted the case.
He only limited himself to condemning the country on some secondary pointssuch as the recommendation to update high-risk pregnancy protocols. There are, therefore, no consequences at the regional level.
The Court also recognized the existence and rights of Leilani, Beatriz’s daughter, who suffered from a serious disability and had been made invisible by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the petitioners. This creates an auspicious precedent for the protection of the rights of unborn people with disabilities that were being questioned.
According to Sebastián Schuff, president of the Global Center for Human Rights, “The ruling effectively marks a turning point in the jurisprudence of the Court, which once again respects the sovereignty of the countries and the letter and spirit of the American Convention that gave rise to the Inter-American Human Rights System.”
In fact, there was only a partially dissenting vote from Colombian judge Humberto Sierra Porto, who criticized his colleagues on the Court, which according to him “abandoned its previous jurisprudence on sexual and reproductive rights.”
The case, which was involved in a scandal due to conflict of interest and accusations of manipulation, is also a clear sign of the need to advance measures that guarantee the transparency and impartiality of the Inter-American Human Rights System and avoid its instrumentalization for the benefit of agendas. political and ideological.
Source: Ambito
