Mexico City’s lawmakers voted this week to legalize abortion, splitting the Mexican population, which is 90 percent Catholic, into two camps.
The city’s legislative assembly voted 46 to 19 to legalize abortion in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. Previous to this bill passing, abortion was only allowed in cases of rape, when the foetus had severe birth defects or when the woman’s life was put at risk by the pregnancy. Only Cuba, Guyana and U.S. commonwealth Puerto Rico allow abortion on demand in Latin America.
The capital of the world’s largest Roman Catholic country is populated by some 8.7 million people, and it is estimated that 200 000 illegal abortions take place in Mexico each year with at least 1500 women dying from botched abortions in unhygienic, backstreet clinics or from assistance by midwives and herbal potions. A Human Rights Watch report claims that many victims of rape are often denied access to the procedure.
Police held demonstrators apart during the vote, as opposing sides yelled insults at each other outside the assembly building. Anti-abortion protesters weeped while carrying tiny white coffins and playing tape recordings of babies crying. On Tuesday, anti-abortion activists published a page of symbolic death notices for unborn children in a newspaper.
Pro-choice demonstrators waved signs saying, “My body is mine,” and “It is my right to decide.”
Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter last week urging Mexican bishops to oppose the bill.
The following day, Felipe Aguirre Franco, the archbishop of Acapulco, said that lawmakers who voted for the bill would be automatically excommunicated. The Liberals’ response was that the church should not interfere in secular matters. Maria Consuelo Mejia, Director of Catholics for the Right to Decide was quoted in the International Herald Tribune as saying “It’s a triumph for women’s rights.” Armando Martinez, leader of Catholic Lawyers said “This is a tragic day for democracy.” His organization claims the city violated the Constitution by ignoring a 36 000 signature-strong petition for a referendum on the issue.
Many women see the vote as long overdue recognition of a situation where women are seeking abortions, whether legal or not. Rich women can afford to fly to the United States, while the poor risk death in underground clinics offering clandestine abortions. Julia Klug, dressed in a fake cardinal’s outfit told Reuters, “There are children dying of hunger, that is a worse sin.”
This article was published Friday, April 27, 2007.
