Zika Virus. Public Domain.
As the Zika virus ravaging Latin America moves northward, renewed attention has focused on the struggle for reproductive justice in El Salvador. In the face of alarming suggested (if contested) links between the mosquito-borne virus and microcephaly in infants, El Salvador’s Ministry of Health recommended that women delay pregnancy for two years; officials in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica and elsewhere have since issued similar warnings. And on February 1, the World Health Organization declared that the virus poses a global public health emergency.
Reproductive rights’ advocates both locally and abroad have objected to El Salvador’s calls for family planning: In El Salvador, abortion is defined by law as a criminal act, without exception.
