Lucila was twenty-two when I spoke with her in 2004 in the mudfloored office of a women’s group on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, while conducting research for a report on reproductive rights in Argentina. During her first pregnancy two years earlier, the doctors at the local public hospital had diagnosed her with a rare heart condition, which converted her otherwise healthy pregnancy into a potentially lethal situation. Lucila was told, in no uncertain terms, that another pregnancy could kill her.

Nevertheless, when Lucila begged these same doctors to sterilize her, they refused the operation, telling her that she was “too young” to stop procreating. Lucila suffered regular beatings and rape at the hands of her husband and was unable to prevent another pregnancy—when

I talked to her, she was already showing. And though she qualified for a legal abortion, even under the very strict Argentina law, she was barred from having one due to lack of proper regulation and the extreme stigma attached to abortion.

I later learned Lucila had managed to terminate her life-threatening pregnancy illegally. I did not hear under what conditions, though chances are they were not good. The Argentine health ministry admits that illegal abortions account for approximately one-third of maternal deaths in the country.

While Lucila’s situation probably is extreme, it is by no means exceptional. Latin America is home to some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws. Three countries criminalize abortion in all circumstances, even when the pregnant woman’s life can only be saved through terminating her pregnancy: Chile, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

Across Latin America, most countries apply an “exceptions” model where abortion generally is outlawed but penalties are waived in specific circumstances, such as if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the woman, if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or if the fetus is so seriously damaged it is unlikely to survive birth. Only in Mexico City and Cuba is abortion freely available to all women and girls who need the intervention, as long as they seek an early termination.

The restrictions placed on access to legal abortion have not made the practice scarce. In Argentina, an estimated 40 percent of all pregnancies terminate in induced abortions. In Peru, that proportion is 37 percent, and in Chile 35 percent.