However, for Fortín-Magaña "the only logical explanation" for what Smith says "is that what she said is a lie for the propaganda purposes of the organization she works for today."
“As former director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and as a doctor, I can assure you that the foregoing is totally false,” he said, pointing out that as short as the sentences are that are given in abortion cases, “it can be for community service instead; and therefore there’s not a single case of women imprisoned for that reason.”
The Institute of Forensic Medicine is an organ of the Salvadoran judicial system that, as the doctor explains on his website, "contributes technically and scientifically to the administration of justice."
The psychiatrist stressed that these are "different" cases than those of women who "committed aggravated homicide" and "murdered their child, once it had been born by the natural process."
The crimes in question, he pointed out, were committed "by suffocation, strangulation, striking with a rock, drowning, or simply abandonment."
Fortín-Magaña lamented that "El Salvador is a country full of problems and violence, where the law is often applied unfairly, especially in favor of groups with political power."
"But it would be absolutely unfair to say that what Ms. Smith says is true, because it’s not," the medical expert said.
“She’s promoting an industry that exploits women”
For Julia Regina de Cardenal, president of the Yes to Life Foundation in El Salvador, “it’s not surprising that a pro-abortion activist lies to try to convince you that she’s defending women when in reality she is promoting an industry that exploits pregnant women in dire straits that need support, not violence and death.”
The Salvadoran pro-life leader stressed that in reality "in El Salvador there’s not a single woman imprisoned for induced abortion, because women found guilty are sentenced to community service."
"The women she says are supposedly imprisoned for 'miscarriages’ and ‘obstetrical problems’ were actually convicted of aggravated homicide of their newborn babies,” de Cardenal said.
(Story continues below)
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“Forensic evidence shows that the full term babies were strangled, stabbed, struck with a rock, had their necks broken, suffocated in septic tanks or inside plastic bags, etc. None of these cases have to do with abortions much less miscarriages. They were infanticides,” she stated.
The Yes to Life Foundation president pointed out that "these women are being released because they were pardoned, not for lack of evidence" and that "maternal mortality has been drastically reduced in El Salvador since the legislation in El Salvador was changed in favor of life.”
“Saying that Salvadoran ‘doctors’ told her that patients died because they couldn’t get an abortion is the same argument used by abortion promoters around the world,” she said.
“Blatantly lying”
Sara Larín, founder of the Life El Salvador platform, said that "Smith is blatantly lying" when she "asserts that there are 140 Salvadoran women accused of abortion."
"According to official statistics from the Office of Access to Public Information of the Attorney General's Office, from 2013 to date there are no women serving jail time for the crime of abortion."