In 2007, Teodora del Carmen Vásquez was nine months pregnant when she felt a piercing pain in her abdomen. She called emergency services, but started bleeding and lost consciousness before help arrived. When she awoke, surrounded by police officers, she discovered she had suffered a stillbirth and had lost her baby.

Teodora was presumed guilty of induced ‘abortion’ rather than the victim of pregnancy complications and was sentenced to 30 years in prison under El Salvador law. Human rights groups urgently need your support now in advance to a planned petition delivery next week aimed at pushing the Salvadoran government to free Teodora.

Amnesty International USA and Group 11 have been fighting for the release of Teodora for years. In 2015, as part of the organization’s Write for Rights campaign, Amnesty International and supporters sent thousands of letters to the Salvadoran Minister of Justice demanding Teodora’s immediate release. Like never before, authorities replied that they would reopen her case for review.

Women like Teodora who have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths have been charged with homicide, a charge that carries a sentence of up to 50 years. Like other women accused of abortion or homicide after suffering a miscarriage, Teodora comes from a poor family that could not afford effective legal representation, and as a result, her trial was flawed and lacked due process.

On Friday, December 8, 2017 the same judges who sent her to prison will review her case and decide her fate. Activists don’t want Teodora to spend the next 20 years in prison because of a pregnancy complication. The review of her case is an opportunity to change the course of her life but she needs your help now. Will you stand with Teodora?

Thank you for taking action,

Svetla Baeva
Change.org Campaigns Team