The Consequences of El Salvador’s Abortion Ban
Cover image: Beacon.
Adapted from Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War, From El Salvador to Oklahoma by Michelle Oberman (Beacon Press, 2018). Reprinted with permission from Beacon Press.
In 1998, El Salvador passed a law banning abortion under all circumstances. Until that point, abortion was illegal except in cases involving risks to maternal life, severe fetal anomaly, and rape or incest. Since then, El Salvador has worked to enforce its ban, mounting an intensive effort to identify and prosecute those who violate the law. If we’re hoping to understand what happens when abortion is banned, El Salvador is the perfect place to study.
Regardless of whether one favors or opposes the abortion ban, it is vital that we assess the law’s impact. A law cannot be justified merely because one likes its message. Even if we like the message of the law, it is valid only to the extent that it produces results that are consistent with its message.
So what happened when abortion was outlawed in El Salvador? The evidence shows us that three things occurred: (1) abortion remained commonplace and rates did not drop even though it was illegal; (2) doctors become involved in law enforcement; and (3) innocent women were accused and convicted of abortion-related crimes. These three systems—the black market, health care, and criminal justice—all yield measurable consequences of the ban on abortion. And, as I explain below, in spite of the vast differences between El Salvador and the United States, there is good reason to expect that the United States would experience each of these three consequences were it to outlaw abortion.
Abortions Still Happen
Perhaps the most surprising thing about banning abortion is what doesn’t happen when abortion becomes a crime. Abortion does not go away. Indeed, the rates of abortion in countries with the most restrictive abortion laws are higher.
This is true in El Salvador: by the Salvadoran government’s own measure, there are tens of thousands of illegal abortions every year. Indeed, the rate of abortion in countries with restrictive abortion laws far exceeds that of countries with far more liberal laws, such as the United States.
The correlation of high abortion rates and restrictive abortion laws does not mean that abortion bans cause
