Mexico City lawmakers legalize abortion
Pastor Dale Morgan
Wednesday April 25, 7:33 AM
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Mexico City lawmakers legalize abortion*
Mexico City lawmakers voted Tuesday to legalize abortion, making the
Mexican capital one of the few places in Latin America after Cuba where
women can terminate early pregnancies without restrictions.
The vote came despite strong opposition from Mexican President Felipe
Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the powerful
Mexican Catholic church, with Calderon's wife having taken part Sunday
in an anti-abortion protest.
After seven hours of fierce debate, the vote was 46 in favor, 19 against
and one abstention in the city legislature, which is dominated by the
leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.
Backers and opponents of the bill had demonstrated outside the
legislature as the 66 lawmakers debated, with police deployed as the two
sides traded bitter insults which mirrored the emotional nature of the
abortion debate in this socially conservative country.
"Damn fascists," one man yelled out at the anti-abortion protesters, to
which a rival demonstrator answered "they should have aborted you,
bloody murderer."
The law made the megalopolis one of the rare parts of Latin America
where abortion is legal without restrictions in the first three months
of pregnancy. Cuba, Guyana and Puerto Rico, a US territory, have similar
legislation.
The bill makes first trimester abortions legal in the capital, even
though they remain generally illegal in the rest of the country.
Until now abortions in Mexico were only legal in cases of rape or if the
pregnancy entailed serious health risks.
Tuesday's debate followed months of controversy, with Roman Catholic
Pope Benedict XVI urging Mexicans to reject the bill and local Catholic
officials threatening to excommunicate anyone supporting it.
The Catholic bishop Chiapas state compared the legislators who drafted
the text with Adolf Hitler, though he also condemned the fact some of
them received death threats.
Supporters of the bill said a prohibition on all abortion only
accentuates social inequalities, with impoverished women getting
clandestine abortions in unhygienic backstreet clinics, and Mexicans who
can afford to pay about 1,000 dollars undergoing the procedure in
well-appointed facilities.
About 100,000 women have abortions every year in Mexico, according to
official figures, though some non-governmental organizations say the
figure is as high as 500,000.
Opinion polls ahead of the vote indicated Mexicans are sharply divided
over the issue.
Outside the city legislative assembly building Tuesday, protesters
chanted "No to abortion, yes to life" and waved religious pictures,
while supporters of the bill held banners proclaiming "the right to decide."
"Women have the right to decide before conceiving a child, not after,"
said Christina Benaviles, 43, a home maker who demonstrated outside the
city's legislative assembly on Tuesday.
Bank employee Rebecca Var, 52, who stood on the other side of the fence,
insisted that legalizing abortion "is a question of public health, not a
moral issue."