“The regional human rights court for the Americas on Thursday told El Salvador it must let doctors perform an abortion on a woman carrying a seriously deformed fetus that has put her life at risk, but the Central American nation was not bound by the move,” Reuters reports (Cota, 5/30). “Doctors say that the woman, known only as Beatriz, is carrying a fetus with a severe birth defect and almost no chance of surviving, and that she faces serious health risks if her pregnancy continues because she has lupus and related complications,” the New York Times writes (Zabludovsky, 5/30). “The Inter-American Court of Human Rights took the action after El Salvador’s Supreme Court issued a ruling on Wednesday rejecting an appeal brought by the 22-year-old woman at the center of the case,” Reuters writes.

“The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, said El Salvador needs to take urgent action to protect the life of Beatriz. That means performing an abortion, a spokeswoman for the court said,” Reuters adds and notes the court “has asked El Salvador’s government to comply with its nonbinding resolution before June 8” (5/30). El Salvador Minister of Health María Isabel Rodríguez on Thursday “said the woman could be induced to have either an abdominal or vaginal birth ‘because the important thing is saving Beatriz’s life,'” according to the New York Times. “At this point, the interruption of the pregnancy is no longer an abortion. … It is an induced birth,” Rodríguez said, the newspaper notes  (5/30).