Last year Amnesty International and a local group, the Citizen​s’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion, formally sought a pardon for “Las 17.” In January, Guadalupe Vásquez, who spent over seven years in prison after her baby — a product of rape — died​ ​moments after being born​​, was pardoned​.

“One vote in the Assembly made all the difference,” she told Al Jazeera. The country’s Supreme Court had already found in her favor, and a second vote in the Legislative Assembly followed its lead. Despite her example, seven of the women have already been informed they will not be pardoned, and the remaining women have been advised that the Supreme Court has found against them. The political vote​, which has yet to take place, ​is expected to be a formality.​

According to Muñoz, Vásquez’s pardon was unusual and was the only time from 1998 to 2015 that a woman in El Salvador has been pardoned​ for any crime. “There was an admission of an error in the judicial process — that the judge made a mistake because there was a lack of evidence and the cause of the baby’s death was undetermined,” he said.

Guevara-Rosas said Vásquez’s pardon provoked a backlash. “The conservative culture toward sexual issues prevails,” she said. “Most of the mainstream media is owned by conservative groups. The 17 are depicted as criminals, and the government is accused of not punishing women who kill their babies.”​ ​

Despite its more leftist position, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front has not amended the abortion ban​ ​since taking power in 2009. While Sánchez Cerén has recently indicated the issue should be studied, he has also said “respect for life” comes first.​

On Wednesday, Amnesty International delivered a petition of 300,000 signatures to his office and that of the President of the Legislative Assembly. It calls for a repeal of El Salvador’s abortion ban. Guadalupe and Mirna were among the local and international campaigners who met with Sigfrido Reyes, the FMLN assembly president. He told them it’s not “politically easy” to put the issue of “Las 17” on the agenda and referred to “the conservative fury” that exists among certain groups. He also said some on the right who supported a pardon for the women were prohibited by their parties from voting in their favor.

“The state has to continue looking at these cases, at these sentences, and find new options,” Reyes said.

El Salvador’s very influential Catholic and evangelical churches have consistently argued that any reform of the abortion law — including decriminalizing it in cases in which the mother’s life is at risk — would simply be a first step in a wider campaign for decriminalization.

“This is the doorway. As happened in other countries, they are searching for emblematic cases to push for legalization,” San Salvador’s Archbishop José Luis Escobar​ said in 2013. He was referring to the case of a woman identified at the time only as “Beatriz,” who had lupus and was carrying an anencephalic fetus and appealed to the Supreme Court to be allowed to terminate her pregnancy because her life was in danger and the baby was not expected to survive. She was not permitted to have an abortion, but in a compromise, she was allowed a cesarean section at 27 weeks, and the baby died hours later.

The church points to the constitution’s protection of citizens’ rights, including, it says, unborn children’s. Politicians on the right, from GANA (Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional) and ARENA (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) in particular, agree. Speaking last year, Congresswoman Ana Wilma De Cabrera of GANA said such cases were “sporadic” and the “law can’t change because of one case.”

In March the main conservative opposition party, ARENA, narrowly won the most seats in legislative elections, making the possibility of abortion reform more unlikely.

“Those politicians in favor of change won’t speak openly because they know they’ll pay a political cost. It will be a hard fight,” said Alberto Romero of the Citizen​s'​ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion. Without a pardon for the 17, he said, they will ask the president to commute the women’s sentences. And without a change in the law, he said, “we want the Health Ministry to tell doctors they’re no longer obliged to report women and an exception to be made in the penal code if a mother’s life is at risk.”

At the prison, the women themselves are divided over the issue of abortion. ​None said they wanted an abortion, and they said that if they had, they would have it at the start of their pregnancies.

Ramírez left them when she completed her sentence just before Christmas. ​Her pardon was supported by the Supreme Court, but with only weeks left in her sentence, there was no vote in the Assembly. ​Now she’s trying to spend as much time as she can with her daughter. Briseyda, who turns 13 in May, still doesn’t know the truth.

“She knows I was arrested but not why. I don’t want her to know. How can I tell her? She’ll just feel bad,” she said.

Her hope is that all El Salvador’s women will be treated differently from how she was. Her message for those with the power to take away freedom is simple. “Investigate, because you don’t know. I lost so much and I wasn’t allowed to defend myself,” she said. “I want those in jail to have the chance I didn’t.”