A Dangerous Departure: The Inter-American Court’s Failure to Squarely Address Abortion in Beatriz v El Salvador

The modern international human rights system was created to protect universal values of dignity and equality from national laws that attacked those norms and weaponized the state against certain populations. Massive progress has been achieved in understanding the protections needed to safeguard gender equality and reproductive autonomy. Today, however, governments from Argentina to the United States to Hungary and beyond are engaging in concerted efforts to assail and undermine sexual and reproductive rights that have long been understood as gendered interpretations of fundamental rights under international law. In this context, the recent decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Beatriz v. El Salvador is a missed opportunity to consolidate the Court’s jurisprudence on sexual and reproductive health and rights and defend the legitimacy of international human rights law.