 |
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2007 
Clerics Unite Against Abortion Bill
 E. Eduardo Castillo - Associated Press
| | Pro-choice activists clash with pro-lifers during a protest against abortion in Mexico City, September, 2000. Mexico City is preparing to legalize abortion - the first region to do so in heavily Roman Catholic Mexico - a move the influential church has vowed to challenge. (Daniel Aguilar/Reuters) |
Religious leaders said Wednesday they have formed a united front against bills to legalize abortion in Mexico, an issue that has divided the nation and drawn in conservative President Felipe Calderon.
Leaders from Roman Catholic, evangelical, Orthodox and Anglican churches said they will call on their followers to march against the proposals that would legalize abortions in the first three months of pregnancy.
The bills have been filed by lawmakers from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, in both the national Senate and Mexico City legislature.
"In the name of Jesus Christ and his Gospel, we ask, we implore they do not approve an unjust and bloody law that kills the innocent," said Rev. Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Catholic Archdioceses of Mexico City.
The position comes in spite of a constitutional ban on political activity by religious groups. It is also being supported by the Vatican, which is sending its chief anti-abortion campaigner, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, to inaugurate an international conference in Mexico City on Friday.
Current Mexican law permits abortions only if the pregnancy endangers a woman's life or if the woman has been raped.
But advocates of the bills say this does not stop wealthier Mexican women from traveling to the United States for the procedure, while thousands of poor women have back-street operations in Mexico. The law would allow abortions to be carried out under safer conditions, they argue.
"We need to stop thousands of women from dying in unsafe operations," said Sen. Carlos Navarrete, who heads the PRD in the Senate. "This is a right our laws should guarantee."
Calderon, of the conservative National Action Party, also has spoken against the measure.
"I have a personal conviction, and I am in defense of life," he said. "I have a plain respect for dignity and human life and, within this, I believe the existing legislation is adequate."
Associated Press Writer Ioan Grillo contributed to this report.
Mexican Abortion Battle Heats Up as Christians Unify
Gunther Hamm - Reuters
Mexico's Christian churches banded together on Wednesday to fight a law that would legalize abortion in Mexico City, fearing it could spread quickly to the rest of the country.
Leaders of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches railed against leftist politicians in the city's local assembly who are likely to decriminalize abortion within months.
"The leftists' anti-democratic, intolerant and fascist attitude has tried to shut up a voice that objects to this absurd blood law," said Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for Mexico City's Roman Catholic archdiocese.
A new leftist majority in the city government has angered religious groups by attempting to swiftly pass liberal reforms. The assembly first clashed with the Catholic Church in November when it legalized homosexual civil unions, a law that took effect on Friday.
Abortion is legal in Mexico City in the case of rape and if a mother's life is threatened.
Assembly leaders argue that legalizing the procedure will save lives, saying that 2,000 women die each year during illegal abortions.
Anti-abortion groups plan to march on Thursday morning to the city's assembly hall to introduce a bill they say would give poor pregnant women financial support, provide tax breaks for child rearing and give aid to adoption agencies.
On Tuesday, a federal senator introduced a bill to decriminalize abortion for the entire country, where the procedure is currently only allowed in the case of rape.
President Felipe Calderon, an outspoken Catholic, criticized the capital's assembly. "I would rather see actions that everyone agrees with and not actions on very sensitive topics that divide society," he said.
Congress is unlikely to decriminalize abortion since Calderon's conservative National Action Party has the largest voting bloc.
Mexico City's assembly expects another fight with the Catholic Church when it pushes for the legalization of euthanasia.
Mexico's Catholic Church leads the world's second-biggest Catholic population after Brazil. Some 90 percent of the country's 107 million people consider themselves Catholic.
The Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches are smaller. Conservative evangelical groups are winning adherents but were not represented at Wednesday's meeting. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us