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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2007 
Mexican Anti-Abortion Groups Vow Protest
 E. Eduardo Castillo - Associated Press
Anti-abortion activists vowed Wednesday to demonstrate outside clinics and publicize the names of doctors who perform abortions now that the Mexico City legislature has voted to legalize the practice.
Foes also promised a Supreme Court battle over the measure, which would legalize abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Leftist Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says he will sign the law. It would then take effect in 60 days.
The measure has heightened church-state tensions in this predominantly Catholic nation. While abortion rights supporters cheered its passage, the National Pro-Life Committee on Wednesday promised a civil resistance campaign.
"It's sad that Mexico City has become a bad example for other states," said Jorge Serrano, the committee's leader. "Mexico also is a bad example for other Latin American countries."
Serrano said activists would publicize the names of doctors as well as protesting outside city clinics and hospitals that perform abortions and possibly blocking their entrances "to stop this crime from being performed."
The leftist Democratic Revolution Party — which governs the city — hailed Tuesday's 46-19 vote on the bill, which requires city hospitals to provide the procedure in the first trimester and opens the way for private abortion clinics.
Abortion-rights activists celebrated at a downtown monument to 19th-century anti-clerical reformer Benito Juarez and said they hoped the law would lead to reforms in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, where only Cuba and Guyana have legalized abortion.
Most other countries in the region allow it only in cases of rape or when the woman's life is at risk. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile ban it completely.
The church shrugged aside a constitutional ban on involvement in politics to actively oppose the bill. It said only that it would "evaluate the moral consequences of the reforms with experts and in accordance with the Evangelists."
Cardinal Norberto Rivera was expected to make a public comment on the vote on Sunday.
The Interior Ministry said late Tuesday in a news release that it was investigating whether Rivera and his spokesman Hugo Valdemar violated the law by marching and denouncing the bill.
Under the Mexico City bill, women having an abortion after 12 weeks would be punished by three to six months in jail. Those performing abortions after the first trimester would face one to three years in jail. Girls under 18 would need their parents' consent for any abortion.
In the rest of Mexico, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the woman's life is at risk. Doctors sometimes refuse to perform the procedure even under those circumstances.
AP writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report. |
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