MEXICO CITY — When El Salvador’s deputy health minister asked women to refrain from getting pregnant as the region grapples with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is believed to cause severe birth defects, there was one obvious question: how?

El Salvador has strict laws governing abortion, which is banned even when the mother’s life is in danger. But some, including a deputy health minister, are now wondering if the Zika virus will prompt a renewed debate about abortion in cases where women's lives are in danger, three years after a similar one tore the country apart.

Eduardo Espinoza, the deputy health minister, told BuzzFeed News that health ministry employees have to abide by the Catholic country’s ironclad anti-abortion legislation “whether we like it or not” and stressed that as a public servant he was required to respect current laws. But he added that if there were situations in which fetuses affected by the Zika virus threaten the mother, he hoped that “the country’s historical memory deepens into a debate.”

Espinoza was referring to the case of Beatriz — which brought global attention to El Salvador’s strict ban on abortion.

Beatriz had appealed for the right to an abortion after learning that her pregnancy was fraught with life-threatening complications and that her baby had no chance of survival. In 2013, her plea was denied by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. Her defense team eventually found an interpretative loophole in the law, which allowed the fetus to be removed by C-section after nearly seven months of gestation. But the case galvanized women’s rights activists. Some have now taken up the cases of 16 women serving prison sentences for homicide after undergoing pregnancy-related complications, including unwanted miscarriages.