The 2022 Dobbs decision reversed 49 years of judicial activism under Roe v. Wade, freeing states to decide their own abortion law through democratic processes. What many Americans missed is that Dobbs, rather than only affecting the United States, sparked global momentum in the defense of life. America rejected national pro-abortion extremism, and Latin America followed close behind.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), a regional tribunal that enforces the American Convention on Human Rights ratified by Mexico and many Caribbean and Central and South American countries, recently decided Beatriz v. El Salvador, a case regarding Beatriz, a young Salvadoran woman with lupus, who was denied an abortion under her country’s pro-life law. Though Beatriz did not enjoy the strongest physical health due to her sickness, she was able to carry and deliver her baby, and she gave birth to a little girl, Leilany. Sadly, Leilany had a life-shortening disability, and she died after five precious hours outside her mother’s womb.
Years after the death of her daughter, Beatriz was involved in a motorcycle accident that tragically took her life. After her heartbreaking death, the pro-abortion lobby retold her story to further their legal agenda. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Women’s Link Worldwide, and Feminist Collective hoped to attribute her death to her pregnancy four years prior as grounds to sue El Salvador for its pro-life law outlawing abortion. The Inter-American Court was not fooled. It released a commonsense decision that Beatriz’s death was not caused by El Salvador’s pro-life law.
The prosecution hoped this case would be Latin America’s Roe v. Wade, and they left the courtroom with that ambition crushed.
The court did not even comment on the right to abortion, effectively preserving the sovereignty of Latin American countries in protecting life from conception. According to Sebastian Schuff, who serves as president of the Global Center for Human Rights, “The ruling effectively marks a turning point in the court’s jurisprudence, which returns to respecting the sovereignty of countries and the letter and spirit of the American Convention that gave rise to the Inter-American Human Rights System.” In the American Convention on Human Rights, each member nation promises: “Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”
True to this commitment, the court respected both Beatriz’s and Leilany’s lives in its ruling. It referenced Leilany by name while insisting on the dignity of Beatriz’s life by carefully examining how her health may have been impacted by the hospital’s pregnancy protocols. According to the Global Center for Human Rights:
Justice and human rights won. None of the petitioner’s demands were accepted. We clarified that in 98.5% of the cases admitted by the Court, states receive some kind of condemnation. In this case the court limited itself to condemning El Salvador on secondary issues for obstetric violence and recommended updating high-risk pregnancy protocols, without mentioning abortion.
The court required neither El Salvador nor any other nation party to the convention to recognize a right to abortion in law. The decision was nearly unanimous. One judge, Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto, dissented precisely because it did not recognize a right to abortion.
Rewriting the Story
Publications friendly to abortion, however, pushed pro-abortion propaganda in their coverage of the decision. They emphasized the court’s sympathetic position toward Beatriz’s health, and they implied a link between her health and a right to abortion. The irony is that in Beatriz’s particular situation, “terminating the pregnancy at any stage would have put her life at risk due to a recent scar from a prior C-section,” according to Maria Quiroga of the Global Center for Human Rights. Abortion was not the healthcare Beatriz needed. The prosecution used Beatriz as a doll whose story could be rewritten to fit an abortion activist agenda.
Ligia Castaldi, professor at Ave Maria School of Law and expert witness in the Beatriz hearings, says that “the misinformation out there is very much wrong.” She speculates that the reason some pro-abortion organizations active in the case have claimed a win for “reproductive justice” is because they have invested so many years of resources into the legal effort. “They must justify it. I believe that they have to justify it to the public, to their donors, that this investment was worth it.”
But biased press cannot change facts. Bethany Janzen, president of Pro-Life Global, stated the simple truth: “Latin American member states continue to have the legal right to protect the preborn.” Latin American influencer Maria Paula Aldana also sees this decision as a win for national sovereignty and a turning point for nations to address the root economic and educational problems which pressure vulnerable women to get abortions — ultimately hurting them while ignoring their underlying needs.
Dobbs’ Effect
The Beatriz case carries the legacy of Dobbs into Latin America. Julio Pohl, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom International, noted that the organization’s amicus brief in Beatriz was built upon the reasoning used in Dobbs. “The Inter-American Court had also that Dobbs decision at their view when they issued this Beatriz decision,” he explained. ADF International gave the IACHR a summary of Dobbs, emphasizing the value of each state’s sovereignty to decide abortion law since “international law does not contain any so-called ‘right to abortion.’”
Historically and culturally, Latin America has been one of the most pro-life regions of the world. In the past two decades, however, individual nations such as Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, and Colombia have loosened restrictions on abortion. In Beatriz, however, we can see how Dobbs became an example for Latin America of continued respect for national sovereignty and freedom to defend the most vulnerable from the moment of conception.
Rachel Schroder is a history major at Hillsdale College. She wrote this article during her internship at the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women.
