SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, July 6, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights is manipulating information about a case of infanticide in an attempt to legalize abortion, a Salvadoran pro-life leader alleged.
The Catholic New Agency reported that after Marina de los Ángeles Portillo, a mother convicted of infanticide, was released for parole, the pro-abortion UN alleged that she had been imprisoned for an abortion.
Pro-life activist Sara Larín, the founder of the pro-life organization VIDA SV Foundation of El Salvador, condemned the UN for deliberately spreading false information.
“It is completely unusual and despicable,” she said, “that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is using Marina de los Ángeles Portillo’s release from prison on parole to pressure El Salvador on abortion.”
The OHCHR claimed the case was “an obstetric complication,” but in reality, “the newborn girl was actually found strangled with socks, one in her mouth and the other tied around her neck with a double knot,” Larín explained.
In May 2007, the police discovered Portillo’s baby daughter with a white sock in her mouth and over her nostrils, while another sock was knotted twice around her neck. The baby’s dead body was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a black plastic bag. VIDA SV reported that “the forensic doctor determined that her cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation.”
On November 1, 2007, Portillo was convicted of murdering her daughter and sentenced to 35 years in jail. On its website, VIDA SV explained that Portillo’s early parole does not mean that she was proven innocent. Parole is something which can be acquired by all inmates if they meet the requirements of the law.
Currently, El Salvador protects unborn babies in the womb, recognizing that every human being is “a human person from the moment of conception.” The punishment for having an abortion can result in from two to eight years of jail; however, judges usually serve alternate punishments. At this time, there are no women jailed for this crime.
The UN office asked El Salvador “to continue the review of cases where women have been detained for crimes related to obstetric emergencies and to harmonize the abortion legislation according to human rights standards in order to avoid new incarcerations.”
In response, Larín commented, “What is truly intolerable is the complicity of United Nations officials in weakening the rule of law in El Salvador, pressuring the country to let incredibly cruel crimes against defenseless babies go unpunished.”
“The UN is one step away from openly calling for the legalization of newborn infanticide,” she stated.
This is not the first attempt to manipulate cases of murder to further the abortion cause in El Salvador. In 2006 LifeSiteNews reported on the case of Carmen Climaco, after the New York Times reported that she had been sentenced to thirty years in prison for procuring an abortion while 18 weeks pregnant. However, court records showed that while the case was investigated on the suspicion of an illegal abortion, authorities found the dead baby hidden in a box wrapped in bags under the bed of Mrs. Climaco. Moreover, forensic examination showed that it was a full term (38-42 weeks gestation) normal delivery, and that the child was breathing at the time of birth. The legal opinion of the cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation. Shortly after LifeSite’s report the Public Editor (ombudsman) at the New York Times, published a 1,500 word article admitting that LifeSite was correct in exposing a grievous error in reporting by the New York Times Magazine.
In 2008, a case involved a mother who murdered her baby, but claimed it was a miscarriage. Officials found the cause of death to be “asphyxiated from inhaling feces and bled out from the violent way her umbilical cord was yanked from the base.”
The mother was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but died from cancer two years later. Abortion activists attempted to use this case to push abortion, claiming that the mother was imprisoned for having a miscarriage.
Another woman, Sara Rogel, was recently released on parole after being convicted of murdering her child. Mainstream media outlets claimed that she had been imprisoned for having a miscarriage.
“In a few hours the headlines of press releases from CNN in Spanish, the Spanish newspaper El País and Deutsche Welle (DW) stated that Sara Rogel was convicted and released for having an abortion, which is a complete lie,” Larín said.