Nairobi, Jan. 23 -- A woman is raped and she conceives. She, however, cannot bear to carry the child and opts for abortion. Alternatively, she carries the pregnancy, but suffers a miscarriage.

The government gets wind of it, arrests the woman, and throws her to jail for decades for the abortion or miscarriage.

Welcome to El Salvador, a country in Central America tormenting women and girls with the harshest abortion laws under the sun. Here, there is a total ban on abortion. Notwithstanding the circumstances under which the women or girls got pregnant.

Previously, under the 1956 Penal Code, abortion was allowed to save the life of a woman. But the 1997 draft bill by the Nationalist Republican Alliance introduced changes passed by the Le...