A woman serving an eight-year prison sentence related to protests in Cuba says that prison authorities tried to force her to have an abortion.
Lisdany Rodriguez Isaac had always wanted a baby, so when the 25-year-old discovered she was pregnant after a conjugal visit from her partner, Luis Ernesto Jimenez, she was determined to have the baby.
Her mother, Barbara Isaac Rojas, said prison authorities and a doctor tried to pressure her daughter into terminating the pregnancy.
Rodriguez is now more than three months into her pregnancy, so an abortion under Cuban law is no longer legal. But prison authorities are making her life as difficult as possible, her mother said.
Rodríguez and Jimenez are in prison for taking part in the July 2021 demonstrations against the communist government — the largest since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Her case was first publicized by Prisoners Defenders International, or PDI. The Madrid-based human rights group has filed a complaint to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. In it, it claims a breach of Rodriguez’s right to life because the state wanted her to abort her unborn child.
PDI chief Javier Larrondo Calafat said that Rodriguez, who is now in her second trimester, “has been denied medicine, water and food — at times going for 14 hours without food and suffering constant verbal abuse.”
Neither the Cuban government’s International Press Center in Havana nor the Cuban Embassy in Madrid responded to VOA’s email requesting comment.
Rodriguez, her partner and her twin sister are among the hundreds of Cubans detained since the mass demonstrations. Human Rights Watch says the government has confirmed around 380 convictions.
The sisters are each serving eight years for public disorder, disobedience and assault on police officers, charges they deny. They are also members of the Association of Free Yorubas, an Afro-Cuban religious group.
In November, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the freedom of religion and freedom of expression wrote to the Cuban government to condemn the communist state for “very serious accusations regarding the pattern of repression of religious freedom in Cuba, including the Yoruba.”
For Isaac Rojas, the safety of her daughter and unborn grandchild is all that matters.
“I learned that Lisdany was pregnant because of a row that I had with a guard at the prison, because he did not want to give food to her. She began bleeding,” Isaac Rojas told VOA. “The captain of security refused to allow Lisdany conditional bail from prison.”
Isaac Rojas says that from the start, her daughter was pressured to end her pregnancy. The day of the first ultrasound, the prison doctor began the process for Rodriguez to have an abortion, her mother said.
“He started filling out papers to do tests and remove the fetus without involving her,” claimed Isaac Rojas.
“She didn’t want to have an abortion. She desperately wanted to get pregnant. She has been with her boyfriend for years and never got pregnant,” she said.
The prison also sent Rodriguez to a psychologist.
“The psychologist told me not to have the baby now, that I had to serve eight years and that there are no facilities [for babies and children] in prison,” Rodriguez told El Pais, a Spanish daily newspaper.
Happy and determined
Despite her circumstances, she is happy. “I was surprised. I really didn’t expect it. I have been trying for many years and have never succeeded. And a child is a blessing from God, no matter the circumstances,” she told the paper.
Her mother, who shared an ultrasound with VOA, said her daughter is determined.
“She is being mistreated, without proper food, water or medications, and her prison uniform does not fit. But she is happy to be pregnant, even if she is in prison.”
Cuban law gives women autonomy over their bodies. The penal code considers abortion without the consent of the mother a crime.
Two years after the revolution, abortion was decriminalized, making Cuba the first country in Latin America to do so. By law, abortion is allowed for up to 12 weeks of gestation and for up to 26 weeks due to malformations incompatible with life.
Larrondo Calafat of PDI said the organization has condemned Cuba for contravening Rodriguez’s right to life represented by that of her unborn child.
“Rodriguez is a young Yoruba believer who for reasons of her religion was arrested and detained for demonstrating in 2021,” he told VOA in a statement. “She and her boyfriend had wanted a child for years, but when she became pregnant, the regime tried to force her to abort but she refused.”
For now, Rodriguez’s 62-year-old mother travels about an hour to Guamajal Prison in central Cuba every 15 days for a two-hour visit with her twin daughters. And Rodriguez’s partner offers what support he can from his detention at the El Yabu Prison.
As with most pregnancies, Rodriguez has cravings. Sometimes she wants ice cream, other times, oranges. But these are impossible to satisfy on a prison diet.
When her child is born, the baby will spend a brief period in prison, then Isaac Rojas will take care of the child.
