San José (AFP) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on Wednesday held its first day of testimony in a landmark abortion rights case as women called for "justice" outside the Costa Rica-based tribunal.
A woman identified only as "Beatriz" is symbolically squaring off at the IACHR against the Central American country of El Salvador, which enforces an absolute ban on the procedure.
The country is accused of alleged human rights violations and torture after Beatriz was forced to carry a non-viable fetus for nearly three months despite a risk to her health.
Protesters had appeared outside the court building in San Jose at dawn to follow the hearing live on a big screen sporting purple accessories -- the symbolic color of the fight for gender equality.
They waved banners stating: "This fight is for Beatriz and for everyone," and asserting the case could "change the future of women in Latin America."
Across the street, about two dozen anti-abortion demonstrators also gathered, praying silently.
The case comes as some Latin American countries are taking cautious steps towards easing abortion restrictions, even as the United States -- which has signed but not ratified the IACHR founding convention -- sees several states rolling back access.
The court's decision to hear the case "strongly indicates...that the denial of any health service, including those that are controversial such as abortion, is a human rights violation," said Maria Antonieta Alcalde of the Ipas reproductive rights NGO, which is among the plaintiffs.
Beatriz died in a traffic accident in 2017 after the case was filed.Her family decided to take the case forward anyway.
"What we really want is for other women not to suffer what my sister had to go through," Beatriz's 30-year-old brother, using the pseudonym Humberto, told AFP.
'A form of torture'
In El Salvador, abortion has been prohibited since 1998 under penalty of eight years in prison.
Courts frequently find women guilty of the crime of aggravated homicide instead, imposing sentences that can go up to 50 years.
Beatriz suffered from an auto-immune disease when she fell pregnant for the second time in 2013 at age 20, after already going through a previous complicated birth.
After the fetus was found to be unviable due to a severe developmental defect, a medical board determined "it was necessary to perform an abortion at that moment (12 weeks of pregnancy) to prevent her health from being damaged or she could possibly die," Beatriz's doctor, Guillermo Antonio Ortiz, told AFP.
An appeal to the country's Constitutional Court for an abortion was denied despite the non-viability of the fetus.
Eighty-one days later she went into premature labor, and after doctors performed a cesarean section, the baby died five hours later.
"I think we made her suffer a lot and I think I have a responsibility to the mom and to the family," said Ortiz, who testified in court.
Gisela de Leon of the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), a rights NGO also among the plaintiffs, said the state had "violated (Beatriz's) rights to life and personal integrity" by forcing her to carry the fetus knowing it could not survive.
"We are claiming that the suffering to which she was subjected, knowing that her right to life was at risk, is a form of torture," said De Leon.
Humberto said his sister was a victim of a poor, marginalized upbringing which causes "such situations happening to women because they do not have access to a system that guarantees reproductive health."
In Latin America, elective abortion is legal in Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Uruguay, and some states in Mexico.
In several countries it is allowed in certain circumstances, such as rape or health risks, while outright bans apply also in Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Several states in the United States have banned or curtailed abortion access since a Supreme Court ruling last June overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had long protected abortion rights.
"Beatriz's situation is typical because it represents thousands of women...whose right to make decisions about their lives is not respected," protester Carla Ansolini, 36, who had traveled to Costa Rica from Brazil, told AFP.
In El Salvador, around 100 women followed the trail by video link from inside the auditorium at the University of El Salvador, most of whom wore green T-shirts bearing the words: "Beatriz wanted to live and be happy."
The IACHR will hear testimony from relatives of Beatriz and doctors who treated her.
The case will be heard over two days, with judgment expected in about six months.
