Miscarriage of justice
正义的“流产”

Where miscarrying can mean a life in jail
一个堕胎意味着终身监禁的地方

ON AUGUST 11th Sandra, a 19-year-old Salvadorean, went to her school’s nurse with stomach pains and a fever. She dashed to the toilet. What happened next is disputed. Her lawyer, Bertha Deleon, says she felt a spasm, looked down to see a dead fetus, fainted and woke up in hospital. Police said she gave birth and murdered her baby. According to Ms Deleon, a doctor later concluded that Sandra had been at most five months pregnant and had an infection known to cause miscarriage. Yet she was charged with infanticide.
8月11日，19岁的萨尔瓦多人桑德拉因肚子痛和发烧去了学校护士科。她冲进厕所。接下来发生的事情存在争议。她的律师贝莎*德利昂陈述，桑德拉感到一阵痉挛，低头时看到了死胎，随后晕倒并在医院醒来。警察指控桑德拉谋杀了她的孩子。据贝莎律师的说法，医生得出的结论是，桑德拉的孕期最多只有5个月，是感染最终导致了流产。然而，桑德拉被指控杀婴。

In most countries where abortion is illegal, only doctors who carry it out are punished. But El Salvador is one of a handful of countries that prosecute women for having them. Between 2000 and 2014 at least 149 Salvadorean women faced related charges; 23 were convicted for abortion and 19 for aggravated homicide. In 2014 the Citizens’ Association for the Decriminalisation of Abortion, a campaign group, petitioned the Supreme Court to free 17 women jailed following reported stillbirths or other complications of pregnancy. (Protesters demanding their release are pictured here.) Three have been freed, though one faces an appeal that could return her to jail.
在大多数堕胎违法的国家，只有执行堕胎手术的医生遭处罚。但萨尔瓦多是起诉堕胎女性的为数不多国家之一。2000年-2014年间，至少2000名萨尔瓦多名妇女面临相关指控。23人因堕胎被判处有罪和19人被判处恶性杀人罪。2014年，运动组织公民堕胎除罪化协会请求最高法院释放17位因死产或其他妊娠并发症入狱的女性。(图为抗议者要求释放她们。)已有3人释放，而其中一人仍面临起诉并有可能重返监狱。

In 1998 El Salvador banned abortion in all circumstances. On paper, Nicaragua’s law is as sweeping—but the authorities do not actually prosecute women. El Salvador’s greater zeal followed the campaign for the 1998 law and a subsequent constitutional amendment that defined life as beginning at conception, says Jocelyn Viterna, a sociologist at Harvard. Feminists decided not to fight the law, she says, but to focus on issues such as sex education and access to contraception. With no opposition, pro-life groups decided to continue campaigning, this time to see the new law enforced.
1998年，萨尔瓦多禁止在任何情况下堕胎。理论上，尼加拉瓜法律是全面实施的，但当局实际操作中并不起诉堕胎的妇女。哈佛大学社会学家乔斯琳*维特尔纳（Jocelyn Viterna）表示，在争取1998年的法律和随后的宪法修正案将生命定义为自受孕之时而发起运动后，萨尔瓦多对禁止堕胎更加狂热。她说，女权主义者决定不去对抗法律，而去关注性教育和避孕等问题。由于没有反对，反堕胎团体决定继续开展运动，这次要看到新法律的实施。

Clandestine abortions are tricky to prosecute. Unless a woman becomes unwell afterwards, the procedure is easy to keep secret. So women arriving in hospital after obstetric emergencies have become the main targets. Doctors seeking to avoid charges of assisting a crime report them on suspicion of abortion. Prosecutors sometimes substitute charges of infanticide. “They arrive at the doors of the hospital bleeding and in pain,” says Sara García of the Citizens’ Association. “And instead of receiving medical attention they are handcuffed and accused of murder.”
秘密堕胎很难遭到起诉。整个堕胎过程很容易保密，除非产妇在堕胎后变得不适。因此，许多因生产遭遇突发情况而抵达医院的妇女已成为主要目标。医生为了避免被指控包庇罪，举报她们涉嫌堕胎。检察官报告有时用控告杀婴来替代。公民协会的萨拉*加西亚说：“她们流着血忍着痛到达医院门口，受到的不是医治，而是被铐走，被指控谋杀。”

The campaign to free the 17 women—nearly all poor, uneducated and from rural areas—has sparked debate in a broadly anti-abortion country. Last month the governing left-wing FMLN party proposed decriminalising abortion in cases of rape and statutory rape, or when pregnancy threatens a woman’s life or the fetus has no chance of surviving outside the womb. But reform of the law looks unlikely. In July the conservative opposition ARENA party argued for increasing the minimum sentence for abortion to 30 years.
要求释放17位妇女的运动在一个大面积反堕胎的国家引发了辩论，而这些妇女大都贫困不堪，未受过教育和来自农村地区。上月，左翼执政党法拉本多·马蒂民族解放阵线（FMLN）提出了女性堕胎可除罪化的几个条件：强奸和对幼儿实施的性犯罪，或者怀孕威胁女性生命或胎儿在子宫外没存活的可能。但改革法律看似不太可能。7月，保守派反对党ARENA主张对堕胎女性的最低处罚年限提升到30年。

The official autopsy of Sandra’s baby was released on September 23rd. Doctors determined that it had no brain. Prosecutors dismissed murder charges against the teenager, who was facing 40 years in jail. Nevertheless, says Ms Deleon, her school’s head teacher has refused to let her attend graduation because she “set a bad example”.
9月23日，官方对桑德拉婴儿的验尸结果公布。医生认定，她的胎儿是个无脑儿。检察官撤销了对未成年人桑德拉的谋杀指控，而该罪名一旦成立，她将面临40年的监禁。但贝莎律师表示，校长禁止桑德拉参加毕业典礼，因为她“树立了一个坏榜样”。