El Salvador Bans Sex

Image by © Felipe Dana/AP/Corbis

El Salvador is one of only six countries in the world where abortion is just illegal, no exceptions.  (Seven if you count the Vatican as a country, which is just stupid, but the UN does it, so there you go.)  They even send women to jail for having miscarriages.

And now this: in the face of the Zika virus outbreak, El Salvador’s Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Espinoza told Reuters:

We’d like to suggest to all the women of fertile age that they take steps to plan their pregnancies, and avoid getting pregnant between this year and next.

And if he gets his way, it will be, shall we say, more than a suggestion.  Because the law in whacked-out places like this is always all about what goes into and comes out of your vaginas!

Of course, good Catholic country that it is, El Salvador makes sure all forms of birth control are really expensive and/or hard to get.  Except sterilization: 40% of Salvadoran women have had their tubes tied.

So the upshot is, no sex allowed -- that can result in a baby -- until 2018.  If then.  That means women can jump through the hoops needed to get the Pill, get their tubes tied, or be lesbians, I guess.

Way to go El Salvador!  Jesus would be proud.

via Vocativ