El Salvador congress upholds total abortion ban

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress has voted yet again to uphold the country’s total ban on abortions. Women’s rights groups had petitioned congress to approve at least exceptions in the case of rape, risk to a woman’s health or life-threatening deformities. But the body voted 73 to 11 to maintain the current law. Legislators said the country’s constitutional right-to-life article passed in 1998 made any changes impossible. President Nayib Bukele has backed the ban, which is among the harshest in the hemisphere, along with Nicaragua. Congress has been asked three times before to return to the pre-1998 exceptions, but has voted against doing so each time.