Abortion in Puertego

Puertego has some of the strictest laws and regulations in Sarpedon with abortion only allowed in Puertego if there is complete certainty the mother would die from having the child with laws existing to illegalize abortion in Puertego since the early 1920's. In Puertego anyone who performs an abortion can be charged with murder with a mandatory death sentence if the abortion was done without the victim's consent, the recipient of the abortion faces a prison sentence of up to 12 years unless the abortion was performed on her without her consent.

History
Abortion laws in Puertego first date back to 1924 with the practice being completely illegal under the law regardless of any circumstances with the laws staying in place even under the constant regime change of the country with there having been several cases of women being arrested and tried for getting illegal abortions when it was later proven that they had natural miscarriages or stillbirths. in the late 1980's until the early 2000's there was a large women's rights movement in Puertego that called for many things from the government with one of the main ones being access to legal abortion, this made the government begin to heavily crackdown on the movement with at least 20 women known to have died as a result of the government's often times excessive suppression of the movement, this continued until the rule of Erik Alférez who finally allowed for women to have abortions in certain situations such as their life of health being in danger or in cases of rape or fetal impairment, this law was later altered under president Torres who reduced the situations where abortion was legal to only the mother's life being in danger.

Illegal Abortion
Though the law officially criminalizes abortion many still happen in Puertego in clandestine abortion clinics which mainly service rich Puertegan women who can afford private abortions while poorer Puertegan women who want to seek an abortion are often left being forced to resort to dangerous methods such as using coat hangers or ingesting chemicals. Low income Puertegan women are often still often investigated for things such as miscarriages or stillbirths but an arrest for a natural one has not been carried out in over ten years. Despite the health risks associated with carrying out a self-induced abortion when surveyed 16% of lower class Puertegan woman admit to having had at least one abortion in their lifetimes, additionally it has been found that around 19% of Puertego's reported maternal mortalities were from attempting illegal abortions.