“In light of the recent case of Beatriz, a 22-year-old Salvadoran woman and mother of a toddler, who, while suffering from lupus and kidney failure and carrying an anencephalic fetus, was denied the right to an abortion, it is relevant to discuss the restrictive abortion laws in Latin America and some of the reasons behind them,” Cora Fernandez Anderson, a Five College Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in comparative reproductive politics, writes in the “RH Reality Check” blog. She discusses the policies of various countries, noting “Latin America is home to five of the seven countries in the world in which abortion is banned in all instances, even when the life of the woman is at risk.” She also examines the influence of the Catholic Church in the region (7/17).