Teodora Vázquez, Salvadoran Woman Imprisoned For Having Miscarriage, Finally Free After 11 Years

Teodora Vásquez was released a day after Valentine’s Day from prison, where she was serving a sentence of 30 years for having a miscarriage in El Salvador - where abortion is a crime under any circumstance. Justice commuted her sentence after her lawyer, Víctor Hugo Mata and the feminist collective of the Citizens' Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion, plus many others organizations, like Amnesty International Norway, worked tirelessly for her freedom.

"She is free, Teodora is free, happy to recover her freedom after going through a whole ordeal, and she has already reunited with her family and returns to her home," Jorge Menjívar, a spokesperson for the Association, told AFP. "She recovered her freedom on February 15, after being incarcerated for 11 years for a crime she did not commit, the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security commuted the sentence of 30 years in prison."

He added that the CSJ determined in a resolution that in the case of Vásquez, 34, "there are reasons of justice, equity and legal nature that justify favoring it with the grace of commutation" of the prison sentence.

As presented by The Guardian, Teodora was 24 years old and nine months pregnant when she felt a pain in her abdomen. After calling emergency services, she started bleeding and lost consciousness before help arrived. Vásquez, later found herself surrounded by police officers who accused her of murdering her baby by inducing an abortion.

She was handcuffed and detained. Abortion has been banned in all circumstances since 1998 in El Salvaror; it is reported than at least 19 women are serving long prison sentences after suffering obstetric complications during pregnancy.