“This was interpreted by the justice system, or by the Rio Negro Judiciary, as having overridden the patient’s will to terminate the pregnancy, and so in 2019 I was convicted, and this sentence has just been completed,” he said.
This time, Rodríguez said, “has been very significant,” beyond the notoriety of his case, due to the commitment to be “a kind of example of what can happen if one does not submit to the arbitrary decisions of the powers that be.”
This experience led him to be “even more committed to caring for life, the protection of the life of the unborn child, the protection of women,” the doctor said.
Rodríguez said that in the eyes of the court, his patient was the victim in this case, “since she had been a victim of rape, she was portrayed by all the media, especially the local media, as the great victim in all this, the one who had gotten the worst of it.”
However, he pointed out, “once the trial was over, the sentence issued, this woman was abandoned and no one else cared for her; unfortunately she had to seek help” to survive.
These facts, the doctor said, make it clear “that those arguments that were put forward at the time, saying that this was for the protection of women, were absolutely false.”