Researcher ORCID Identifier

0009-0005-0165-617X

Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

11-2025

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History

Reader 1

Professor Lisa Cody

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Rights Information

© 2025 Valery M Reyes

Abstract

This thesis examines how a series of regressive legal reforms in El Salvador–the 1997 Penal Code’s expansion of abortion-related punishments and the 1999 constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception–eliminated all exceptions to abortion and transformed a woman’s reproductive body into a site of surveillance. Rather than expanding rights, these reforms rolled back on existing protections by not recognizing obstetric emergencies, miscarriages, or cases of rape as legitimate grounds for abortion. Prosecutors and judges could treat such medical emergencies as convictions for “fetal homicide,” carrying sentences of 30-50 years in prison.

Court documents, reports from non-government organizations (NGOs), and defense testimonies show that these laws disproportionately targeted poor and working-class women, who lacked access to adequate medical care and legal resources, while public narratives from pro-life organizations framed them as morally suspect. Despite this, human rights organizations and women’s rights groups have documented the consequences of the ban, highlighting its debilitating effects on the health, privacy, and well-being of women’s lives. Taken together, these reforms reveal how the law, religious morality, and social discourse have been used to punish deviations of motherhood and ultimately criminalize the female reproductive body.

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