Nicaragua Anti-Abortion Law Becomes a Cancer Patient's Death Sentence

A pregnant 27-year old Nicaraguan woman has been refused treatment for metastatic cancer, a result of Nicaragua's draconian anti-abortion law. The law stipulates that women will face prison sentences for obtaining or attempting to obtain abortions, and health care professionals will face jail time for providing women with health services associated with abortions. It also refuses treatment for HIV/AIDS, cancer, malaria, and cardiac emergencies when such treatment may interfere with the life of the fetus.

The law is so complete that it criminalizes abortion even when carrying the pregnancy to term threatens the health or life of the mother (as in the case of the aforementioned woman with the pseudonym "Amelia," who is being denied cancer treatment because of potential harm to the fetus) or when the woman has been a victim of rape or incest. The majority of rape and incest victims who become pregnant are 10- to 14-year-old girls, forced into pregnancies that seriously endanger their physical and mental health at this immature state. Doctors have spoken out about their fear of treating pregnant women for disease, because if anything happens to the unborn fetus, they could be charged under the anti-abortion law.

Amelia's case has brought the hideousness of this law to international light. The particularly cruel irony in her case is that she is likely to die from the cancer before the baby is even born, meaning the government's policy will have not only killed the mother, but the baby as well. Amelia is also the mother of a 10-year-old girl, who apparently has no right to a mother, but does have the right to a sister. This is beyond absurd -- it is painfully, egregiously wrong.

Amelia's case is one of many, but it has come out because her sister, who doesn't want to lose Amelia to a law created by men to appease the Catholic Church, has spoken out and asked human rights groups to come to her aid. Amelia gets sicker and sicker by the day; the cancer is in her brain, lungs and breasts. Activists need to act immediately and demand that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights petition Nicaragua's government to save Amelia's life and overturn this horrific law. This is not the right to life -- it is the right of the state to effectively hand death sentences to women.

I urge you to sign this petition immediately and help to save Amelia and so many other Nicaraguan's women's lives before it's too late.

Photo credit: Jorge Mejia