On February 26th, an 11-year old girl was forced to give birth via c-section in the Tucumán province of Argentina. The infant, delivered at 23 weeks, has now died.

The young girl, called “Lucia” to protect her identity, discovered she was pregnant on January 23rd after being brought to a first-aid center for stomach pain. It was later revealed that she had been raped by her grandmother’s 65 year old partner. After enduring the trauma of sexual assault, Lucia was forced to endure the additional “torture,” as some are calling it, of being refused an abortion.

Abortion is illegal in Argentina but a 1921 law grants exceptions to women who are victims of rape. However, delays from government officials and conscientious objections from doctors delayed the abortion for five weeks after the initial discovery of the pregnancy, despite pleas from the girl to “remove what the old man put inside me.” At 23 weeks gestation, the decision was made to deliver the infant via c-section.

Argentina’s strict abortion laws have not lowered rates of abortion, as an abortion is performed every 90 seconds and 450,000 unsafe, illegal abortions are performed each year. Lucia’s case, in which she was denied the basic right to bodily autonomy and forced to have a major surgery against her will, is one more example of Argentina’s abortion laws’ failure to keep women and girls safe.

Prior to the birth of the baby, both the 11-year-old girl and her mother had requested a legal interruption of pregnancy (ILE, Interrupción legal del embarazo), Tucumán a las 7 website reported. Instead, the C-section was carried out, apparently in breach of the victim’s rights under the Criminal Code.

According to Tucumán a las 7, a statement from the provincial health system had ordered the hospital’s director Dr. Elizabeth Avila to carry out “the necessary procedures in order to save the two lives.”
A report in Clarín, citing one of the doctors who carried out the intervention, said that they had received threats after carrying out the C-section but that the mother was in good health following the procedure. 

The medical professional said those involved had declared themselves “conscientious objectors,” in order to carry out the procedure. The doctor said the C-section had been necessary because an intervention could not be carried out vaginally.

In an interview with Radio Nacional, Cecilia Ousset, a specialist who was present during the birth of the baby, said: “I believe that [Governor of Tucumán] Juan Manzur, due to an electoral issue, prevented the legal interruption of the pregnancy and forced to the child to give birth.” She described the situation as “torture.”