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Ethical Issues In El Salvador Essay

1516 Words7 Pages

There are many countries with controversial laws surrounding abortion and the reproductive rights of women. For the sake of focusing on certain moral issues surrounding these laws, this essay will focus on the country of El Salvador. Before analyzing the various moral issues it is important to first understand just how strict the abortion laws in El Salvador are. An article written by Michelle Oberman focuses on comparing the most recent abortion regulations in the United States to those of El Salvador. In 1998 El Salvador revised their penal code that gave passes to women needing an abortion due to cases of rape, incest, or threat to maternal health to one that banned abortion altogether. This penal code not only banned abortions, but criminalized …show more content…

The majority of El Salvador residents identify as Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism has very strong views on abortion and how they respect the lives of the unborn. This makes perfect sense that a country whose main religion does not support any type of abortion, would have laws restricting this. But, this proves to be an issue for those residents of El Salvador who do not practice a religion that so openly and strongly opposes abortion. The same could be said for the majority when it comes to moral importances. They would not support lesser abortion laws and would take any change of the sort as a direct attack on their religious and moral beliefs. But, if residents do not see an issue with abortion, why should they be forced to live under laws that strictly prohibit and criminalize them? If someone were to answer this question with a solution that pertains to encouraging women to move out of the country, another would respond similarly to Michelle Oberman. There are moral issues surrounding the ability for women to have the freedom to just up and move out of their country. Especially if it is a country similar to El Salvador. This country is a particularly poor one surrounded by just as poor countries with only slightly less strict and restrictive laws. These women are not able to travel in order to avoid abortion laws. Bringing up once again the moral and socioeconomic disagreement when it comes to this topic. This leads many to wonder if the government believes in freedom for their citizens, especially their women, at all. A lot of people think that this causes a moral dilemma based on their view that a woman's financial and geographical status should have no affect on their right to their own

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